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A SIREN’S SON 


BY 


/ 

SUSIE LEE BACON 


“Life is a gray plain whereon are mirages — nothing more.” 






CHICAGO 

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
175 Monroe Street 

1895 



1 


TZb 

£> \?)(o & 


Copyright 1895 
By Susie Lee Bacon 
MI Rig^hts Reserved 


' '■] 
i 

Unity Library, No. 40. Monthly, $3.00 a year. December, 1 Sq4. 

Entered at the Postoffi.ce, Chicago, as second class matter. ^ j f; 



A SIREN'S SON 


CHAPTER 1. 

In the low marsh lands of the Carolinas the 
air was heavy and hot» holding back every breath 
suffocatingly. Across the flat country one could 
not even see the rise of a hillock; there was no 
rest in the dead monotony of land which 
stretched away, far as the eye could reach, and 
above which the clouds hung in masses of dull, 
gray color. 

The grayness of the summer day rendered 
the heat less glaring, though scarcely less in- 
tense in power, than when as usual the sun 
poured down burning rays, withering the iris 
and white-foot flowers, and causing the heavy 
scent to rise from the stream sickeningly. It 
was sluggish just here, lying in the shadow of 
the road bridge, with slimy weeds and dank 
3 


4 


A siren’s son 


mosses showing through, among the pebbles and 
sharp-cut rocks; further down, under the 
shadows of the live-oaks, whose branches 
drooped with gray moss like bearded prophets, 
it ran more swiftly; as though saying: — 

“Lo — I am going to leave the desolation behind me — 

I am going to seek life elsewhere.” 

Here there were fish, swiftly darting, and the 
long-legged water flies made trailing circles in 
gracefullest fashion. 

On one of the projecting tree-roots a boy sat 
fishing. He was holding his line carelessly, and 
his eyes were not upon it. The clinging moss 
from the tree above almost touched the bright- 
ness of his forehead; it was white, with the 
smooth whiteness of pastel. The eyes were 
dark, with lights in them, yellow like his hair. 
A small black bound book with loosened and 
worn leaves lay open, with crumpled pages, 
upon the ground. A leaf was turned down, and 
a straggling pencil line circled this paragraph: — 

“The law of nature and of God is this — the 
stronger always prevail over the weaker.” 

It was the beginning of a chapter, but the boy 
had not read farther. He scarcely felt the sharp 
jerk at his line; he landed his fish and took it 
gravely from the hook, then placed it wdth three 


A siren’s son 


5 


others in a small pool formed in a sunken hol- 
low, He did not bait his hook again, but 
stretching himself at length upon the ladies’ 
slippers and long-stemmed iris, stared up at the 
shadowed sky. 

Ah! the “long, long thoughts of youth!” 
They carry us into the mystery of mysteries: 
they carry us gropingly into the untrodden realms 
which in the rashness of daring and the inno- 
cence of faith we hesitate not to penetrate. The 
door which in after years is closed upon us — is 
open to us now; the future calls and beckons to 
us; the world cries “Come!” Its berries are red 
and sweet to look upon, but they are bitterer 
than gall under our tongues. 

The boy lay very still, with his head resting 
on a clump of gray moss and his hands clasped 
under it. Presently he rose up. He was tall 
when he stood, tall for his short trousers. He 
lifted the slippery-bodied fish from their tran- 
sient abode and flung them one by one back into 
the stream. 

A gust of wind through the trees meant rain; 
it fluttered the pages of the book, and the waves 
of the boy’s hair. 

Here in the lowlands was a scanty settlement. 


6 


A siren’s son 


The French Huguenots began it, counting largely 
upon the rice plantations and swamp birds. But 
the freshets drowned their hopes and their crops, 
and the summers brought death. So there re- 
mained now only the ruins of the little church, 
the graveyard, where the darkened tombs held 
quaint, unreadable inscriptions, and a low stone 
house upon which ivy clambered and made its 
feast. An old and worn house, whose founda- 
tions, being of rock, defied many a storm and 
tempest, as did its occupant. 

He was a man who had tasted life, and looked 
into it through many glasses. He had lived in 
many countries, and among many peoples. He 
knew the follies and the weaknesses of man- 
kind, and he expected nothing from them. But 
he did not judge, for he felt himself not with- 
out sin. He had found disappointment the 
harvest of hope. Now he did not hope, neither 
did he believe. But he was satisfied with his 
books, his roses, and Paul. 

He sat on the porch, with his thin gray hair 
uncovered to the breeze, watching the swift 
gathering clouds. The drops were beginning 
when the boy rushed up the walk with the im- 
petuosity of youth, and flung himself upon the 
' step. His cheeks glowed and his eyes were bright 
with the intoxication of health. 


A siren’s son 


7 


“You’re warm, Paul!” 

“I raced with the rain. The wind sounded 
like chariot wheels, and I played there were a 
legion of demons pursuing me.” 

The man smiled: “And your fish.^*” 

“Oh! I put them all back in the water,” 

“Why?” 

The boy turned, dragged himself across the 
porch and leaned his head against a pillar. 

“I don’t know why,” he answered; “I didn’t 
want them. It seemed such a little thing to be 
catching fish — just that; when one might be like 
Sir Launcelot, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or the 
one whose name I can’t pronounce, that you are 
always reading about, A woman could catch 
fish!” 

“Women have lost men worlds.” 

“They were not real men, then. Why, you 
yourself say how contemptible it is for a man 
to think of women — that he will become like 
Sardanapalus. I hate them.” 

“What do you know of them, to hate?” 

“Oh! I know Cleopatra, and Mary Stuart, and 
Guinevere, and I hate them all. If I had been 
Anthony I would have strangled Cleopatra and 
then cut off her head.” 

The other laughed: “You are too blood- 


8 


A siren’s son 


thirsty. They are not worth that much. And 
you — will change.” 

There was a pause between them. The boy’s 
knitted brows showed his thought, while the 
man smoked, watching the white wreathing 
columns. 

“My father,” the boy spoke hesitatingly, “what 
is worth anything.? I can’t find out. The fish 
I catch are not. If I climb up after the rock- 
wort it dies as soon as I have pulled it; and 
the people I read about are all dead. Tell me, 
what is most worth having.?” 

He raised himself on his elbow, his face gath- 
ered into puzzled frowns, his eager questioning 
eyes reading the other’s face. 

“You should ask a philosopher that question. 
For me, there is nothing worth more than this 
smoke, which cometh up and vanisheth away 
utterly. Man is no more, and life is in man^^ — in 
the breath of his nostrils.” 

He forgot that he was speaking to the boy. 
So often he did that the lad had grown used to 
somber thoughts which he but half compre- 
hended. He sat still a little. Then there came 
another question, put slowly, reluctantly. 

“My father — -will the dead never come back.?” 

The other started as from a revery: “Paul, 


A siren’s son 


9 


you are too inquisitive; go and feed your pup- 
pies. There is a wise man who says it is better 
to be a live dog than a dead lion. Go!” 

Later, when he went into the back room, he 
found Paul with a little black and white puppy 
in his arms, and there was no wonderment in 
the lad’s face as he laid his cheek against the 
sleek coat. 

“Is it wrong to love a dog? I love Bruno so 
very much because I can kiss and pet him.” He 
loolied up as he spoke, his gray eyes full of ten- 
derness. 

His father turned away. “So it goes,” he said 
to himself; “how often is it that the mind, the 
soul, is stronger than the passions! We prate 
of philosophy, we quote our sciences, we are 
vdser than the children of men! And lo! there 
comes a time when to each and all of us there 
is a new voice, which rises and cries to us, say- 
ing: ‘Look! I am your master!’ Master? Ty- 
rant — rather ! for before it philosophy and science 
yield.” 

He turned and looked at Paul. 

The boy was lying at full length, with his 
arms clasped about Bruno’s neck. He had not 
heard him. His face, in its fresh young beauty, 
was so like another face — how could he forget ? 


lO 


A siren’s son 


What occult learning could wipe away the image 
he held — the tender mouth, the sweet grave 
eyes, the yellow hair? And Paul was like her 
— as she had been. 

He had been older, by twenty years. She 
had not known what he had exhausted. But 
he had loved her, he had given up everything 
before that, he had given his strength into her 
hands; he had laid down wisdom, all that his 
life might have been. If she had cared a little 
more! But there — what was the use? He had 
the past; he could not fear the future. 

“Father!” Paul’s voice sounded sharply. 

“Well.?” 

“I don’t see why I love Bruno so much. It 
is not like I love you — it is different. I like so 
just to feel him, he is so soft and warm, and 
when I put him up by my neck, it feels so — oh! 
I can’t tell you how it feels, only I want to 
squeeze him right to death.” 

“Don’t hurt him, Paul. It is only women 
who are cruel.” 

“Yes, I know.” He put the dog down and 
rose, looking thoughtfully at his father. 

“Was Cleopatra a witch, father, that she 
made Anthony love her so, or why did he?” The 
old puzzled frown came between his eyes. 


A siren’s son 


II 


“Perhaps.” The answer came absently. The 
speaker was not thinking of Cleopatra. Again 
there was silence between them. Then the boy 
spoke wistfully. 

“Father, will I never see any of those people, 
or any like them.^ They are all dead, I know; 
but what is it like, away from here.?” 

“You wilt know soon enough, PauL This 
little life as you know it is your universe, now. 
There will be a time when the whole universe 
will seem narrower.” 

The boy did not understand. Often he did 
not, but he did not ask any more questions. He 
put the thoughts which had perplexed him away 
and went out to beg the old colored crone who 
served as cook, to make some hot corn cakes for 
supper. 

Paul’s life was scarcely like that of other boys. 
For one thing, he was fifteen miles from the 
nearest village, and while over the flat sand 
roads that meant ' little enough, yet he rarely 
went from home. He studied with his father, 
a natural love for knowledge being cultivated 
and fostered bv the latter, though half reluc- 
tantly. 

“It amounts to nothing,” he would say; “but 
it is just as well for us to learn that we can 
never know anything.” 


12 


A siren’s son 


He lived an out-door life, too, running wild 
among the woods, fishing, swimming, and riding 
a piebald old cob whose temper was as uncertain 
as his gait. 

Paul was not unhappy. Being entirely strong 
and healthy he gave no thought to his body, 
and so was most well. Thus, in thinking little 
about happiness, he was most happy. He loved 
his father and his puppies, and he had enough 
to eat and to drink. It does not take a great 
deal to satisfy one, until one begins to think. 
Now he felt simply the enjoyment of existence. 
He did not look further. 

Mr. Lemain had sufficient income to enable 
him to live as he did — abstemiously enough. 
He cultivated roses, and watched their growth 
with more interest than anything else, and he 
was fond of smoking. He was not strong, and 
knew as well as any mortal could, the number 
of his days; therefore he sometimes sighed when 
he looked at the boy. 

Paul was fourteen — and death seemed far 
enough away from him. 


CHAPTER 11. 


It was nearly dusk, one soft August evening, 
that Paul was coming home, having been almost 
to Ronceverte, the nearest village. He was rid- 
ing slowly, with the scent of the late flowers all 
about him. The sky was full of little pink 
patches of color, and behind the pines the sun 
showed very red. It was warm and sultry, with 
a still thickness of atmosphere. Paul paused, 
in the middle of a shallow stream which crossed 
the road, that his horse might drink. Then he 
got down and made a cup of his hands, for him- 
self. As he remounted he heard the sound of a 
horse’s hoofs coming with a soft thud upon the 
sandy road behind him. He turned his head, for 
in his rides he was not used to meeting any one. 
A man with a soft hat pulled over his eyes and 
a riding suit somewhat splashed, was close to 
him. As he came alongside of Paul, the stranger 
touched his hat gravely. 

“Is there a small settlement near here, can 
you tell me.^’’ 


13 


14 


A siren’s son 


“Yes, about three miles on. I am going 
there.” 

“Then perhaps you will direct me,” said the 
man. 

Paul nodded: “If my horse can keep up with 
yours.” He laughed as he spoke; he had taken 
off his cap to catch the faint breeze, and the 
man looked at him critically with his narrowed 
eyes. 

“Do you live there.^” 

“Yes.” 

“All the time.?” 

“All the time.” 

“And what do you do with yourself?” 

“Do?” said the boy, restlessly, “oh! I don’t 
know; study, ride, sometimes play chess with 
my father, and hunt when there is a chance. I 
used to fish, but I don’t now.” 

“Why not?” 

“It seemed so tame, such a little thing, any 
one could do it. So mean, too, deceiving the 
fish instead of just killing them outright.” 

“But the fish gets the fly you offer it.” 

“Yes, but then it dies.” 

“Most of us would be willing to die, if we got 
what we wanted before.” 

“I would not,” said the boy, resolutely. 


A siren’s son 


15 


“What do you want?” 

The other was silent. The sun fell upon his 
face, showing its beauty the more perfect, caus- 
ing the man to regard him intently. 

“I don’t know,” answered Paul, finally; 
“I don’t know what there is to want.” 

“In my world,” said the man, leaning forward 
a little and resting his dark, magnetic eyes upon 
the boy, “I live as you do, and yet not as you 
do. I study, but people, not books. I ride, 
but it is in a race — to keep up with time. I play 
at chess, but — my pawns are men. I know not 
what I want, because there is nothing that sat- 
isfies in life.” 

“Do you suppose that death satisfies?” said 
the boy. He could not have told what prompted 
the question, for he had not thought much of 
death. 

“They do not come back to tell us, those who 
know. What do the priests tell you of them ?” 

“Nothing. I do not see any priests. My 
father says they are false, that they corrupt the 
truth, that they pretend to believe in the false, 
if they do not really. Therefore they are not 
true.” 

“Your father is wise. Who is he?” 

“Jean Lemain.” 


i6 


A siren’s son 


“Ah! It is he I am coming to see.’^ 

The boy wheeled about, joyfully: “Really! 
I am so glad.” 

“Are you.^ Why.^” 

“I don’t know, but I am. Somehow, you 
make me different. I get so tired of myself.” 

“You will never take as much interest in any 
one else,” said the man. 

There was a pause. The sun had entirely 
disappeared, leaving the sky a mass of pale 
lemon-colored cloud. 

Presently the man spoke: “And you like it 
here.?” 

“I have never been anywhere else,” said the 
boy, simply; “but my father has, and yet he — 
likes it here — he does not want to go away.” 

“And your mother.?” He looked at the boy 
guardedly. 

Paul glanced up, startled. “I have not any. 
She has been dead ever since I was born.” 

“Ah!” 

There was another silence. Now and then 
the man glanced at his companion with a certain 
swift intentness. Their horses kept along evenly. 
Paul felt an undefinable sensation, partly of ex- 
citement, mingled with a little uneasiness he 
could not understand. 


A siren’s son 


17 


“Do we go much further?” asked the stranger, 
presently. 

“Only a little way. See yonder! When we 
have turned that bend in the road where it goes 
to the right, and come out under those trees, we 
will be there.” 

Anpther moment, and they were within sight 
of the house, 

“That is my father, now, watering the roses,” 
cried the boy. He sprang from his horse as he 
spoke. “Shall I take yours?” he said. A certain 
something which he could not define kept him 
from going up with the stranger, nor did his un- 
known acquaintance seem anxious that he 
should. 


CHAPTER III. 


Paul came up to the house a half hour later. 
As he crossed the threshold of the little sitting- 
room, his father’s voice called his name. It had 
an odd, constrained sound to him. He went in. 
There was a strange look upon his father’s face, 
in keeping with his voice. He and his guest 
were sitting by a small table, with a bottle of 
Madeira and glasses upon it, but the wine 
was scarcely tasted. 

“Paul, this is Mr.Dulaney. Shake hands with 
him.” 

The stranger nodded and held out his hand. 
With his hat off, he showed a high forehead, 
and a dark, handsome face. He smiled as he 
spoke. 

“We are friends already— eh! Paul.?” 

The boy crossed the room to his father. 

“Yes, I met Mr. Dulaney on the way.” 

“He is a friend of your mother.” 

Paul started, his face turning very white. 

“My mother!” 

“Yes.” 


18 


A siren’s son 


19 


“But — he controlled his voice with an 
effort, “1 thought she was dead?” 

The two men smiled, studying the boy’s face 
the while. 

“She is not. She has written to me concern- 
ing you.” 

The color came now. It flushed up into his 
face. His eyes sparkled. A quick excitement 
made his heart beat. His clasped hands tight- 
ened. His whole being thrilled with a new and 
sudden exhilaration. “My mother!” 

“She wants you to come to her,” went on Jean 
Lemain, his eyes still fastened upon the boy’s 
face. 

“To come to her?” 

“Yes. Do you want to go?” 

Did he want to go? In the brief moment of 
silence that followed, Paul felt himself trans- 
ferred to the ends of the earth, to all the nooks 
and corners thereof. His head swam. He was 
powerless to answer. Maurice Dulaney rose, 
throwing his arm carelessly around the boy. 

“You have not had time to think, yet; we do 
not answer questions in life too quickly. Let 
Paul show me your roses, Monsieur Lemain. I 
can tell him more there, and afterwards you and 
he can talk it over.” 


2C 


A siren’s son 


The elder man hesitated, then waved his 
hand lightly: “Go.” 

As they left the room he dropped his head 
upon his breast: “Fool! to care so much. Where 
is philosophy now? Where the ethics that 
teach man to care for nothing? Why care so 
much for a boy with a pretty face? Let him 
go. Having nothing, I will care for nothing.” 
He poured a glass of wine and drank it hastily. 

Outside, the two took their way in and out 
among the flower beds. Dulaney’s face wore a 
smile that showed itself beneath his heavy 
mustache. 

“Paul.” 

“Well?” said the boy, eagerly., 

“What are you thinking?” 

“Oh! Of my mother. Tell me, what is she 
like.?” 

For answer the other drew out a small, ex- 
quisitely chased locket, pressed the spring and 
held it toward the boy. Paul looked at it, hold- 
ing his breath with excitement. A woman’s face 
looked back at him. An oval face, v\ith large 
down drooped eyes and full curved lips — a face 
with a beauty in it such as he had never seen. 

“She is so beautiful.” He spoke in a half 
whisper. 


A siren’s son 


21 


“More.** 

“She is like the women one reads of, then.** 

“Why?** 

“Because we only read of them. I do not see 
any. Yonder is the only kind I know.*’ 

He pointed to a woman who crossed the field 
a tall gaunt figure in a limp calico skirt and sun- 
bonnet. She was one of the distant neighbors, 
going home. 

The other laughed: “Come and see,** he said. 
He leaned forward as he spoke. The breath of 
the roses swept with the words. The magnet- 
ism of his eyes seemed to penetrate the boy’s 
soul. 

“Listen,** he went on slowly, as he drew Paul 
down upon a low rustic seat. “Listen. Do 
you love beauty.-* you will have it. Do you love 
power.? you will have it. Do you love forgetful- 
ness of self.? you will have it, for the time being. 
Do you love pleasure.? you will have it. Are 
any of these worth having.?** 

“You have tried them all, tell me if they are,** 
cried the boy, passionately. 

“But we must try them for ourselves. We 
cannot have others speak for us. Each one of 
us must test life for himself — we cannot answer 
for another.” 


22 


A siren’s son 


There was a silence, while overhead the clouds 
massed themselves into forms and shapes, and 
the wind brushed the leaves of the low hanging 
roses. 

“And my mother; let me see her face again.” 

He gazed long upon the portrait. When he 
looked up his eyes were bright with excitement. 

“Does she love my father.?” 

Maurice did not answer, for a moment. Then 
he said, watching the boy curiously, “No.” 

“Is that why she is not with him — why he is 
here alone, with culy me.?” 

The other nodded. His face was grave, while 
he waited for the boy to continue. 

“Then I will not go to her. She is wicked, 
I know. She is like those I read of, and always 
wanted to kill.” 

He sprang to his feet, and as though fearing 
pursuit pushed his way through the thick rose 
vines, leaving the guest alone. Maurice Dulaney 
sat quite still, with a half smile upon his face. 
“How he is like her!” he murmured. 

At breakfast next morning, Jean Lemain gave 
the decision. 

“My son refuses to go. I trust his mother will 
be fully assured that no act of mine has in any 
wa'/ influenced him. I left him free choice, 
r hooses to stay.” 


A SIREN’S SON 


23 


Maurice bowed gravely in reply. Later he 
came upon Paul. The boy was sitting with his 
face buried in his hands, but he raised it quickly 
when he heard Maurice. 

“Shall I take any message to your mother, 
Paul?” 

The boy started. “Are you going, so soon?” 
He could not bear the thought of giving up this 
new and wonderful interest which had suddenly 
appeared before him. 

“Yes. What shall I tell your mother, from 
you ?” 

The color flushed up into Paul’s face. There 
was anger in it, at first, then the anger died 
away and the eyes that met Maurice’s were al- 
most pitiful. He spoke with an unwillingness 
to let the words go. 

“I— I would like to see her. I cannot help 
that. But I will never leave my father.” Then 
he turned and went indoors hurriedly. 

It was an hour later that Maurice came to say 
good-bye. The boy helped him to mount, with 
a wistful expression. 

“Will you ever come back?” he asked. 

“Who knows?” returned the other with a 
shrug. “Meantime, here is my whereabouts. 
When you are tired of the wilderness, let me 


24 


A siren’s son 


know where to find you in the multitude, that I 
may know which means life to you.” 

Paul stood holding liie card, upon which Du- 
laney’s address was written, as he watched the 
latter out of sight. Then he flung himself upon 
the ground. The sun seemed suddenly to have 
gone behind a cloud. There was a damp chill 
in the air. Paul was tired, for he had not slept 
the night before, but instead, long, long after 
the moon had reddened and gone down he had 
sat with his head against his father’s knee lis- 
tening to his story. How he had loved a wom- 
an, beautiful and young; loved her— to find that 
she cared for ambition more than for him or for 
her child. She had chosen to leave him, and he, 
who had thought to find happiness, had found in- 
stead the bitterness of life and the folly of loving. 
Now they were apart— apart forever, unless 
to touch groping hands again within the mystery 
of infinity. 

But the woman was his mother. His mother! 
He was tired, full of a desire for her, to see her, 
to know her. How could he help that.? Her 
face in its wonderful beauty haunted him; he 
could not but think of her. He wanted to hate 
her, too, but somehow he did not know or un- 
derstand himself. He looked up at the sky. It 


A siren’s son 


25 


was the dead blue he was so used to seeing. He 
wondered how it looked elsewhere. Heretofore 
he had not thought much about any other place, 
or any person but his father. Now he was hun- 
^’ry for something he had never had. She 
winted him— his mother —and yet he had re- 
fused. 

The days came and went, growing shorter with 
the increase of fall. 

In September the unhealthiness of the place 
was always greater. The atmosphere was heavy, 
and hot waves of air alone relieved or intensified 
it. The flowers drooped their heads. The 
sun-baked earth was of a dull brown color, and 
where the grass had been, were bare patches. 

Paul was thinner, that was all, thinner and 
graver; he said little; he did not care for the 
puppies now, and he liked best to lie out under 
the pine trees, looking up at the dead blue sky 
— thinking. He read less. Sometimes he 
took out Maurice Dulaney’s card and studied it 
intently. Always he was thinking of his mother. 

Jean Lemain had grown weaker. The low 
country fever was chronic with him, and seemed 
to sap the very life blood from his veins. He 
coughed, too, with a racking sound. After sit- 


26 


A SIREN'S SON 


ting silently watching the stars as they came 
into being, he would say: 

“Patience: in a little while I shall know.” 

When the winter came he put Paul through 
a more vigorous course of study than ever be- 
fore. The boy learned readily, and his father 
did not scruple to tax his mind to its uttermost. 
He delighted in stimulating him, and urging him 
forward, but he did not let him grow round- 
shouldered. 

Meantime Paul sat often longing to see and 
hear Maurice Dulaney ag^ in. Where he was 
satisfied before, he was now full of a discontent 
— a discontent that he hated to admit. The 
short winter went quickly, and the summer 
came up triumphantly, crying: “Lo, I am 
stronger than you. I banish you, cold winds 
and storms.” And the sunshine and the birds 
came and the flowers appeared on the face of 
the earth. 

But the boy’s heart was full of discontent. 
The narrow limits of his life seemed threaten- 
ing to suffocate him. Oh! to be free! To go, 
as the birds which flew over his head, to see 
something beside the skies and the trees and the 
streams; to be among and of men. And yet he 
hated himself for the thought and tried to crush it 


A SIREN^S SON 


27 


down. Often riding, he would look wistfully back, 
with the unacknowledged hope that Maurice 
Dulaney might appear. “It was here I first saw 
him,”he said to himself, “but he will never come 
back — never!” 

“Paul, what are you thinking of.?” said his 
father, suddenly, one evening. 

“Life.” 

“Ah! and I, of death.” 

The boy looked up, startled. 

“Death!” 

“Yes, why not.? Death is a part of life, the 
perfection of it. Can there be one without the 
other.? In a little while, now, I shall know 
what the word means, I shall go to look into the 
second great mystery of our being. Perhaps I 
shall then find others yet to solve, others as 
great, or greater; but whatever there is to come, 
I shall not be long in knowing now.” 

“Ah! Hush! Think of me.” 

“Paul,” said the other, gravely,“do you think 
I would have let you hold to your desire to stay 
here, to live this — to you, with all the hopes 
and ambitions of youth — ’Cramped and isolated 
life, to go on for years with no one but myself 
for companion, and the knowledge of real life 
unknown to you.? Perhaps I have been selfish. 


28 


A siren’s son 


Paul, in keeping you these months, but I have 
known it would not be for long. When one is 
going into eternity, a year or two seems little. 
Perhaps 1 have been wrong to keep you here at 
all — but that is so nearly over now. You v/ill 
go to your mother, since she wishes it; you will 
see what the world calls life; you will judge for 
yourself. For me — I am glad it is over.” 

But the winter came, and the spring came, 
and as yet the disease which he felt taking his 
life from him crept lingeringly, as though play- 
ing with its victim. 

Paul was sixteen. The beauty of his face had 
developed and strengthened, and he had the 
figure of an athlete, Jean Lemain lay all day 
upon the cane sofa in the hall. Sometimes he 
talked, but oftenest he lay very quiet, thinking. 
Paul went about in a state of dull despair. When 
he waked in the morning it was with that load 
of depression which seems worse as we open 
our eyes. Once he flung himself down beside 
the couch. 

“My father, what is the use of anything.? We 
can do nothing against the inevitable.” 

But the other smiled. 

After all, there came none of the dread and 
dark paraphernalia of death. When the last 


A siren’s son 


29 


summons called to him, Jean Lemain seemed 
willing, ready, as one going forth to meet a 
friend. Going into darkness, but without fear, 
without regret. There were birds singing, and 
the sunlight shone upon his face, which smiled 

with an ineffable peace. 

***** 

It was a dull gray evening, with a fine sum- 
mer mist falling, that Paul stood taking his last 
look at this — his home. His face had aged in 
the past weeks; the youthful boyishness had 
gone out of it, as though a hand had suddenly 
swept it away. ^ 

He had written Maurice Dulaney that he was 
coming. He had put in order all the little his 
father left, and in his will found himself heir to 
a small income which would at least serve as 
foundation for what his head and hands might 
increase. Now there was nothing to do but say 
good-bye to the trees, and the familiar sights 
among which he had grown up. He was leav- 
ing them in person now — in spirit he had left 
them long ago. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Mrs. Kingston — for Jean Lemain’s wife had 
kept hold upon the title her marriage had given 
her, though she had broken impatiently from 
the bond itself, and from his name — stood on 
her broad piazza, about which a mass of clematis 
vines formed a background for her face, which 
was small and delicate like the blossoms. The 
house was large, looking out on the sea, with a 
broad sweep of ground around it, and long low 
windows. Inside the rooms were fitted after a 
true artist nature. Katherine had taken great 
pains with this house. She had built it here on 
the Peninsula, the first year after her separation 
from Jean Lemain. She spent a month in it 
whenever she was in America, a month of abso- 
lute repose. It was a rest she hated, but the 
strong salt air gave strength and youth to her; 
and youth -youth— that was what she loved 
even more than her beauty; she clung to it; she 
pushed aside the future. 

She did not show her thirty-five years; there 
30 


A SIREN S SON 


31 


was not a silver thread in the mass of pale yel- 
low hair which crowned her small head; her face 
had a delicate color that intensified the blueness 
of her eyes, and her figure had lost its angles 
and was well rounded and symmetrical. She 
was above medium height, and carried herself 
well. She had sung before American and Eu- 
ropean houses, and had lived here, there and 
everywhere. She was proud of her success, 
proud that no breath of scandal had ever touched 
her name. If she believed in anything, she 
believed in her own inflexibility. She understood 
herself better than most women, though she 
could not quite grasp the fact that she had once 
fancied herself in love, and gone so far as to 
marry Jean Lemain, True, she was only sev- 
enteen; and a girl is merely a possibility at that 
age. Her voice, too, was but a suggestion of 
her life then. She was glad she had found out 
her mistake early enough in life to remedy it. 
And perhaps the experience had not been alto- 
gether bad. She knew her own power the bet- 
ter, at all events. She had all the power that 
comes to a rich and beautiful woman -and none 
appreciated it more. 

She stood this evening, in the sultry summer 
twilight, with one hand resting upon the ham- 


32 


A SIREN’-S son 


mock and the other twined in among the vines 
which trailed about the pillars. At her feet, 
with his hair almost brushing the silken hem of 
her pale green skirt, Paul sat. He was looking 
up at her with the same deep questioning eyes 
that had searched into and over the pine woods 
and flat marsh-lands a month ago. Opposite, 
leaning indolently against the pillar, was 
Dulaney. Katherine was looking at him, rather 
than at her son. 

“Do you know I have grudged you every min- 
ute you have kept Paul from me; even though 
it was to make him presentable and let him see 
a little of a city. I know I should be grateful, 
for I have no fancy for collecting uncut stones, 
however precious. And yet — ah! — it is very 
good to have my son.” 

She looked down, with a look that was a ca- 
ress. The boy’s face flushed under it. Maurice 
Dulaney laughed: 

“As long as the fancy lasts, it will.” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“Hold to your fancies as long as you can. 
There is always the possibility of some hidden 
and as yet undiscovered sweetness in them; al- 
ways the hope of finding that which we create in 
them.” 


A siren’s son 


33 


“Is there?’- His eyes were full upon her, while 
her own were fixed upon the distant white- 
capped sea. 

“You told me the man who took hope for 
his anchor would most likely be sunk by its 
weight.” He spoke slowly, coming a little nearer 
her. 

“Did I?” 

“It may have been good advice. Are you 
going to teach Paul all you have taught me?” 

“I doubt if he prove as apt a pupil. Paul, 
inon cher^ will you tell Dennis to bring us an 
ice?” 

When he had gone, the two stood still, alone 
•in the shadow. She broke a spray of the clem- 
atis vine and twisted it about her fingers. 
Maurice spoke again. 

“The boy has beauty, and a fresh white soul. 
Sometimes I am sorry I helped to bring him 
here. I wonder what you will make of him?” 

“That depends on his capacities.” 

“Not at all. I had capacities — once.” 

“Maurice,” she gave his name the French 
sound charmingly, “you are a good fellow — but 
you are tiresome in warm weather, and heavy. 
Burgundy is all very well in its place, but I pre- 
fer Champagne.” 


34 


A siren’s son 


“Katherine, did you ever think it was a dan- 
gerous thing to play with souls?” 

“Bah! You are plagiarizing Browning. He 
has such a line. I do not like him any more 
than I do Burgundy. And now, Monsieur, un- 
less you will stay and eat an ice with us, I must 
say adieu. Those strong evening breezes are 
treacherous, and I— have a throat.” 

She put up both slender hands about it as she 
spoke, drawing the filmy lace a little closer. 

'‘'‘Adieu, then, and say to Paul, I will be over 
for our sail to-morrow, early.” 

He lifted his hat and passed out with the 
shadows. Her hands dropped from her throat, 
meeting and clasping each other, and her face, 
as .she stood a minute looking after him, changed 
a little. Then she went inside. Paul met her, 
followed by Dennis. 

“Where is Mr. Dulaney?” 

“Gone back to his hotel. No, we will not 
have our ices out there. Push that table here, so, 
and we will have some wine. One needs stimu- 
lant with these frozen things. Digestion does 
not mean much to you now, but you will find it 
is at the bottom of most things in life.” 

She played with her sherbet, leaning back 
among her cushions, looking at her son. He 


A siren’s, son 


35 


was very good to look at. He pleased her 
more than anything had done for many a 
day. What brightness there was about his hair! 
And his eyes, darkening a little in their yellow 
lights, were full of thought. She pushed the 
decanter to him, 

“Fill your glass, Paul.” 

The warm red wine called the color into his 
cheeks, and made his eyes sparkle. He began 
to talk eagerly. 

“Mother, I used to say 1 hated and would al- 
ways hate women; now I do not know whether 
to love them all because you are one, or to hate 
them because there can be none like you.” 

“Wine and women are alike, Paul. Good 
when they quicken life in you, but to avoid Vi?hen 
they dull it.” 

“I should think they would all hate you, be- 
cause you are so different,” he went on, scarcely 
heeding her words; “do they not.!*” 

“How do you know I am different.?” 

“Oh, because you are so clever, so beautiful, 
and I can feel you are strong. Other women 
do not have all.” 

She smiled, pouring him out another glass cf 
wine. 

“ Li.sten. A woman can be anything she wishes 


36 


A siren’s son 


She is a musical instrument which holds all 
chords. She can make a philosopher think her 
v;ise, and a fool think her merry. ' She can be 
pathetic with the sorrowful, and joyous with 
the joyful She can make a man think her beau- 
tiful when she has no beauty. She can be like 
these diamonds, Paul, flashing rays everywhere, 
yet holding them all.” 

“Ido not believe all women can; they are not 
like you.” 

She laughed: “A woman is best at everything, 
except when she is herself. Then, she is too 
apt to be weak.” 

“But you are not.” 

She pushed back her chair. “Wait until you 
see more of me — your old mother — ” 

Then he threw his arms about her, calling her 
by every dear and endearing name; his heart, so 
long starved for any woman’s love, was now so 
full of it. He gave her all the love that life had 
g'ven him; he worshiped in and through her, 
God, the universe, the soul. 

She let him hold her close, no matter that he 
crushed the laces and lilies at her breast, no 
matter that- he roughened the curls of her hair. 
He kissed her with the kisses of love, he held 
her with the strength of love, and she was after 
all — a woman. 


A SIREN^S SON 


37 


The wine ana the warm summer night made 
the boy drowsy. He went to sleep presently on 
the cushions, and Katherine looked about her 
for something to do. She felt restless. She 
opened a book of poems that lay upon the table. 
Maurice Dulaney had given them to her, and 
his name was written in bold black characters 
across the flyleaf. She shut the book hastily. 
Presently she lifted a light shawl, and winding it 
close about her throat and shoulders, stepped 
out from the low windows on to the porch. The 
moon had risen, and lay stilly, half veiled in a 
vapor of pale clouds. The soft night wind 
stirred the' leaves of the shadowed trees. Away, 
the sea waves lashed up against the beach. 
They cried and called, full of longing, full of 
despair. She leaned her head against the pillar, 
and listened. In the distance lights flashed and 
glimmered, and she could catch faint strains of 
music, that came borne on the wind’s voice. 

They were dancing over there, the guests, 
dancing and holding high carnival; but here the 
roar of the sea waves came, and the darkness of 
the night was about her. But within — the boy 
slept. 


CHAPTER V. 


Katherine wakened next morning when she 
heard Paul scrambling out of bed in obedience 
to the summons from Maurice, for they were to 
start early to sail to Light House Island. 
They were going to fish, too. 

Maurice Dulaney had come here two weeks 
back; he was generally somewhere near Kath- 
erine, but their names were never coupled to- 
gether. She was too discreet for that. She was 
a woman who had let her art elevate, rather than 
in any way degrade her. It was indeed her art 
that saved her. Katherine was not a good wom- 
an, as the word goes, but her art kept her from 
being worse. As for Maurice Dulaney, some- 
times he wondered if it were possible to hate and 
to love passionately the same object. And some- 
times he could not tell the one feeling from the 
other. 

Katherine watched them through her shutters 
as they started. The day was just breaking. 
Long lines of lemon colored lights, and a deeper 
38 


A siren’s son 


39 


glow interspersed with pale pink flushes, swept 
across the sky. 

The new born day was fresh and pure as a 
girl’s unkissed lips. Down in the dew, a blue- 
bird was taking his bath. She pushed the blind 
a little further. It swung back, and she stretched 
out her arm to draw it to. The noise caused 
the men on the steps to look up. The lace of 
her night-dress had fallen open and her bare 
throat and half-revealed bust gleamed fairly 
white in the early lights. Her outstretched arm, 
from which the lace of her sleeves drooped, was 
like a fringed flower. 

She drew back, as her eyes met the look in 
Maurice Dulaney’s, Paul sprang up the steps, 
two at a time. 

“You are awake. I must kiss you before I 
go.” 

He covered her face with kisses and she 
pushed him from her, laughing. 

“Nonsense. You are disturbing my beauty 
sleep. I have not seen the day break in ten 
years.” 

Maurice Dulaney leaned against the pillar, and 
his hands were tight clenched, while behind his 
narrow lips the teeth met. Paul came down, 
laughing. 


40 


A siren’s son 


‘‘How beautiful everything is!” he cried. 

Light House Island lay to the south, “in dark 
purple spheres of sea.” Years back, a boat 
tossed and rocked on the wave^, near and yet 
away from its friendly shores; and the despair- 
ing band within it vowed, did they reach the 
land in safety, they would make it sacred to the 
God who saved them. So they built the Church 
of the Sacred Heart; and, though it was all but 
in ruins now, the Convent of the Virgin was 
there still, and the lamps of the gray lighthouse 
shone every night upon the sea. 

Paul sat in the bow of the boat. He felt the 
rocking motion more strongly there, and now 
and then the salt spray dashed in his face. 
Maurice was a good sailor, and the sea was like 
glass. Now and then a porpoise leaped, show- 
ing its shining body above the surface. The 
early morning mists curled and wrapped about 
them. The lights changed and paled across the 
sky. They did not talk much. Maurice watched 
the boy, wondering a little how he would look 
two years hence. His face now was not like 
other faces. Now he was looking at life as in 
a mirror, and in the reflection saw only his own 
beauty. 

After awhile they fished. Then they threw 


A siren’s son 


41 


the strings back into the water, because Dulaney 
promised better sport at the Island. Now and 
then a fishing skiff or a white sail came into 
view and crossed them. Sometimes they beard 
a fisherman singing. Maurice sang; his voice 
was a full tenor, but not powerful. He sang a 
song Mario used to sing, but the boy did not 
know that, for he had never heard Mario. 

“Wait until you hear your mother sing,” said 
the other, when Paul heaped breathless admi- 
ration upon him; “I am like a sparrow chirping 
by a nightingale, I wonder if you have any 
voice.!*” 

“None. My mother (he always said my 
mother in a proud sort of fashion) made me try 
to sing, so that she might see. She says I have 
no more voice than a bullfinch.” 

They went on silently. The sunlight crept 
athwart the boat and the breeze swept their faces 
and the white caps flashed in the grayness of 
the sea. 

“How beautiful everything is!” cried the boy, 
again. 

Maurice laughed. It was not a happy laugh. 

The boat came to shore in good time. “How 
hungry I am!” said Maurice; “I had forgotten 
we had coffee and rolls.” 


42 


A siren’s son 


He fastened the boat as he spoke. On the low 
tided sands white and tinted shells were swept, 
and here and there a huge many colored sea 
blubber was imbedded in the shore. The strong 
salt breeze blew keenly and made the sand, 
which now and then whirled against their faces, 
to bite and sting. The fresh, pungent sea odors 
greeted them, and a re-awakened life was upon 
their senses. 

“There is the lighthouse, Paul, and I have 
some business with the keeper. Yonder are the 
ruins of the church, and that gray building be- 
yond is the convent. Where will you amuse 
yourself in my absence.?” 

“Are you going now.?” 

“Yes. I will not be long. You can come, if 
you like, or wait for me.” 

“Then I will wait, or explore.” 

The other nodded and went on. Paul stood 
still for a minute, and then took his way between 
the white sand heaps in the direction of the 
church. In the enclosure around its ruins there 
were a few blackened tombstones heading the 
pitiful, neglected graves. He opened the gate 
and went in, reading here and there an inscrip- 
tion, old and worn, telling how the dead who 
die in the Lord rise again, how He is the resur- 


A siren’s son 


43 


rectioii and the life. The boy sighed as he read. 
He ,vas thinking of the grave far away, which had 
neither cross nor stone, because he had said: 
“The dead know not anything.” But the mem- 
ory was not forgotten. 

He turned away, in among a cluster of low 
growing bushes, and as he made his path through 
them he caught a glimpse of a gray-blue dress. 

A spot of gray-blue color, among the tomb- 
stones and straggling shrubbery, was worth in- 
vestigating, more interesting than these dead 
and gone souls. He pushed aside the bushes and 
came out under a broad leaved maple tree. 
Stretched beneath it was a diminutive figure, 
with her hands clasped about a mass of damp 
curling hair which clung about her face. Her 
eyes were quite the color of her dress, and were 
searching through the boughs up to the clear 
summer sky. She started and sat up at his ap- 
proach. Her face was very white, but it colored 
slightly at sight of him. 

“I beg your pardon,” said Paul. “I did not 
know any one was here.” 

She looked at him hesitatingly, as though 
uncertain whether to remain or to run away. 
She drew her skirts down a little over her slim 
ankles, and put up her hands to her hair. 


44 


A siren’s son 


“How did you get it so wet?” said the boy, 
smiling. He settled the question of acquaint- 
ance for them both by throwing himself down 
beside her. Children were a hitherto unknown 
study to him, but shyness was foreign to his 
nature. 

“Bathing. I have been in an hour. My hair 
is so sticky Sister Cecile sent me here in the 
wind to dry it. I came here, but there is not 
any wind.” 

She smiled, and two dimples came into her 
cheeks. Her face was so white and fair it made 
him think of a bit of coral, or a pearl shell. 

‘'Down by the beach there is.” 

“Yes, but I like to come here. Over there is 
grandmama, that little green mound there. I 
tell my beads there, sometimes, and sometimes I 
hang wreaths upon the cross. And, some- 
times, when it is nearly dark and the sky and 
the sea are gray I can see a face, almost like 
the blessed Mother’s, looking down at me. I 
love to come.” 

He looked at her in wonder, a wonder that 
took possession of and held him silent. 

“Mamma comes too, sometimes. But mamma 
is not strong. Oftenest I come with Sister Cecile. 
She teaches me to make wreaths.” 


A siren’s son 


45 


“Do you go to school?” He was still half 
dumb with wonder, for he had never seen any 
one like this before. 

“Yes, to the convent. Sister Louise says I am 
not quick to learn, but Sister Cecile says God 
makes us all different. I will learn after awhile, 
and the dear Christ helps me when I cannot do 
my sums.” 

“Christ!” 

“Christ Jesus,” she said, softly; “you do not 
think it wrong in me to say that, do you? Sis- 
ter Louise says perhaps I am too presuming; 
but He is so near me. I think His dear Mother 
tells Him how I love Him, so He comes.” 

Paul laughed, a low, ringing laugh. It called 
a pale flush to her face and made the pupils of 
her eyes darken. 

“It is so absurd. Such an absurd super- 
stition,” he said. 

“What do you mean? It is all true, true, true. 
Oh, how can you say such a thing?” 

She had risen to her feet. The tears showed 
under her black lashes and the tiny figure looked 
so pitiful in its grieved distress, that involun- 
tarily the boy threw his arms about her and 
kissed away the tears which he had provoked 
The damp silky hair brushed against his face 
and lips, like a returned caress. 


46 


A siren's son 


“Never mind. Do not cry. I am so sorry.” 
He said the words in deep contrition. 

They walked along together, silently. Paul 
was so much taller he had to bend his head to 
look into her face, to see if she were still crying. 
No, there were no more tears, but a troubled 
look kept her eyes down. What would Sister 
Cecile say if she knew of her companion and 
how he had treated her.? And yet she had not 
known what to say, she had been taken so aback 
by his kisses. 

“I must go, here,” she said, as they came to 
a narrow path; “mamma will want me.” 

“Tell me first, you forgive me,” said Paul, tak- 
ing her hand, “for wounding you as I did.” 

“1 know you did not mean to,” she answered, 
very softly, trying to draw her fingers away 
from his, “I am going to say a little prayer for 
you every night; a little prayer to Christ and 
He will forgive you, too.” 

“But you will tell me your name, won’t you, 
that I may know whom to remember.?” 

“Oh, yes,” she said, gravely ; “I am Margaret — 
Margaret Ferrol. I have lived here always.” 

He wondered how long ahvays had been. 

She answered for him: 

“I am only twelve years old now; but when I 


A siren’s son 


47 


am older, if I study hard and pray well I can 
come to be as Sister Cecile is, and then I will 
belong entirely to God.” 

Her eyes shone and glowed with the soul in 
them. He turned his head away. The waves 
lashed into his ears and seemed to echo — God! 

He looked at her again. Here, then, was a 
soul which held that love, that peace, which 
passeth all understanding. Oh, simple faith! 
Oh, love of God made perfect ! His heart throb- 
bed with a thousand new-born emotions, and it 
was as though it struggled and quivered in the 
throes of birth. 

He watched her pass in under the shadow of 
the elms, on to where a low frame house stood. 
She walked slowly, with her head drooped a 
little, and her hands clasped upon her slate 
blue frock. In the yard was a woman hanging 
out clothes, and she called the child, a little 
sharply. 

“Margaret, Margaret, where have you been 
all this while.J* Are you turning into a snail, 
that you crawl so.^*” 

He watched her go into the house, watched 
the last bit of color disappear. Then he turned, 
looking out on the great, vast stretching sea, 
stretching out like space itself; holding, yet con- 


48 


A siren’s son 


cealiiig, suggesting, yet unrevealing, of Infinity. 
In his heart were longings, strong as those the 
waves seemed to hold, 

“Tired. Paul.?” 

A quick step beside him, and Dulaney’s hand 
touched his shoulder; “I was longer than I 
thought. Come, the keeper tells me there is 
excellent fishing, and a good place where we can 
have luncheon. What do you think of the Is- 
land.?” 

They spent the day lazily, enjoyably. Paul 
hoped inwardly he would have a chance to see 
Margaret again, but he did not. She was busy 
making wax flowers for the altar. Sister Ce- 
cile had taught her. And while she worked she 
was thinking of her next confession, and what 
she should say. And then she was thinking of 
a little plaster Christ she had. There was some- 
thing in the face that was like Paul; and he had 
such golden hair, it was like a halo. But he 
had spoken very wickedly of the dear God, and 
she knew the devil often put on disguise and 
came and tempted souls. She began to feel a 
little frightened, and her hands trembled as she 
cut her wax 

The clouds were deepening and thickening as 
they took their way home. Back of the gray 


A siren’s son 


49 


convent the sky was a mass of color like sub- 
dued flame. In front, the sea was copperish. 

“Maurice,” said the boy, suddenly. 

“Well?” 

“Do you believe in anything?” 

“Yes.” 

“What?” He leaned upon his elbow, eagerly. 
Above, a sea-mew called. 

“Shadows. Nothing else.” 

“In nothing else?” The wistful voice sounded 
plaintively. 

“How do I know?” said the other, almost 
roughly. “How do we ever know, we creatures 
of moods? The world and life are full of 
shadows that we cannot hold or grasp. Happy 
are those who give up trying — the happiest, 
those who never begin.” 

They were silent. The water lapped against 
the boat’s side. The moon showed palely in 
^the sky. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Paul was silent and somewhat abstracted for 
several days. Maurice was called away on 
business, and the time dragged a little. Some- 
times Paul vvished for his father. Katherine 
did not like the look which was in his eyes then, 
for it questioned her power. She was jealous 
of Paul, and of his love for her, but she did not 
show any hint of it. Paul thought of Margaret 
Ferrol, too, and he wondered how it was that 
there could be so strong a belief in a thing that 
was utterly false. If it was not false, it might 
be a pleasant thing to think of and cling to when 
everything else seemed so valueless. But his 
father was very wise. He knew that. He could 
see how different he had been from the men he 
saw now, and he had not held any such faith. 
And he could see his mother did not, though 
she never said anything about it; and she was 
a woman who did not settle any question lightly. 
And then Maurice was unsatisfactory, and in 
truth life itself seemed so to Paul, even more 
than when he had had narrower limits. 

50 


A siren’s son 


51 

But he loved his mother, and when he was 
with her he put everything else away from him, 
for she was so wonderful. She was' never tired, 
never dull, never anything but beautiful, ga}^ 
and clever. She did not have any of those 
gloomy thoughts, which were like Guy de Mau- 
passant’s black butterflies, and which hovered 
about him so persistently. 

He had been reading a good deal, too, and it 
had not helped him, for most of that which 
he read seemed so at variance with the belong- 
ings which made up life. And he could not help 
wondering why some people took such a differ- 
ent view of it, and if they were any happier, 
and if there was any chance that they were 
right. But it was all so much a mystery. He 
could not begin to fathom it. And sometimes 
he felt as if his brain was full of cobwebs, and 
he could not brush them away. 

Katherine said it was malaria. 

“Why are you so dull, Paul.?” she asked him, 
one evening. She had come upon him suddenly, 
unawares. He was sitting with his head against 
the vine-trailed pillar, his eyes looking far out 
across the placid sea. 

She put a hard lightly upon either shoulder. 
He looked up, half startled. The light of the 


52 


A siren’s son 


sun, as it went down, was upon her face, upon 
her hair. It left no room for shadows. 

“I am not dull any longer, now you are here.” 

“Ah, but you are. Remember, / am not to 
be deceived, though I do not care how much 
you play with others. Come inside. You can 
watch the light from my window. And I have 
a wine in here which is like sunlight. And if 
you are good — I will sing to you. There! that 
is a thing I do not often do. But you have 
known me only as a woman, you have yet to 
know me as a voice.” 

“I have known you as everything that is beau- 
tiful,” he said; “I do not believe there is any- 
thing left for me to know.” 

She put her hand under his chin, and turned 
his face up to hers. 

“There is where you mistake. It is my creed 
to hold something always in reserve, something 
a little better than what you have suspected. 
But I must not whisper away all my secrets, 
must I.? Listen, Paul. Do not worry yourself 
with searching into philosophy and into things 
we cannot explain nor understand. I tell you 
there is more in one song of mine, there is more 
in one touch of my hand — so — ,” she passed it 
over his forehead, and he felt an electric thrill 


A siren’s son 


53 


tingle his nerves — “there is more in a look — 
Paul, don’t you know that man is full of the 
animal instinctively, and therefore susceptible 
to animal influences? But come, now I am go- 
ing to mesmerize you.” 

She drew him inside. It was a small oblong 
room, with an alcove behind whose curtain was 
her piano. The walls were tinted a delicate 
pink, and the pictures were very few, and of 
odd choosing. There was a statue of Venus, 
one of the costliest of its kind, but there was 
no bric-a-brac whatever. 

She pushed him gently into a seat. It was a 
low lounge, piled with cushions. They yielded 
to him, giving out luxurious odors. Katherine 
turned away for a moment, and then came to 
him. She had a glass with a yellow wine in it.' 
She held it to him. 

“Paul, ‘ Wer liebt nicht Wein^ Frau und Ge- 
sang ' — do you know the rest?” 

“No, but I will learn it with this.” He emptied 
the glass. Katherine laughed, as she took it 
from him, 

“Now I am going to sing to you — just one of 
your own moods. Mind — this is not my song — 
it is yours. It is one of your own fancies. You 
may watch me, but after awhile you will forget 
I am there.” 


54 


A siren’s son 


She drew the curtain back. Paul was facing 
it, and he could see the delicate profile. She 
untwisted the lace scarf from her throat. Her 
dress was white, leaving her arms bare. 

The first ;iotes she struck were so low and 
plaintive, so full of shadowy suggestions, that 
somehow Paul felt as though he were back again 
with the sorrow of parting with his father full 
upon him. Katherine’s voice mingled with the 
chords before he knew it. He could not tell just 
when she began to sing, but now he was con- 
scious cf a wonderful sweetness stealing upon 
him, creeping over him with slow, subtle power. 
He felt as though a spell were upon him. The 
voice, rising and falling in its perfect cadences 
increased in its power, and, as she had said, he 
saw her no longer. He felt only the magical 
beauty of the music upon him. He could hear 
the words, too, and though they were strange to 
him, it yet seemed that they must belong to 
him. 

“The sky made a whip o’ the winds and lashed the sea into 
foam, 

And the keen blowing wind tore the flags and the sails, of 
the ships that were plunging home, 

Of the ships that were tossing home, on the black and 
billowy deep. 

But who shall reach to the wrecks, the wrecks, where 
the ships and their Captains lie? 


A siren’s son 


55 


“There was once a ship of my soul, that tossed on a stormy 
sea 

And this was my prayer when the night gloomed drear, 
‘Send my soul’s ship safe to me.’ 

Send my soul’s ship safely home from billow and black- 
ened shores. 

But where is the soul that can reach to the depths — the 
depths where my soul’s ship lies? ■ 

“Oh ship of my soul, storm tossed 
In the far and fearful nights, 

Lost — lost in the blackness, lost 
In sight o’ the harbor lights!” 

Her voice wailed itself away, yet he was not 
conscious she had ceased. Her power was upon 
him, holding him in its embrace. It sent whirl- 
ing thoughts across his mind, thoughts conceived 
and born of her song. She sat looking at him, 
smiling softly, her hands resting idly upon the 
keys. She had won much applause, much ad- 
miration, but she liked none better than this. 
She spoke his name softly: 

“Paul.” 

He did not answer her, and presently she 
turned to the piano again and began to pla3^ It 
was a gay, rollicking French song, a song she 
would not have sung, unless for the merriment 
of a bizai've salon, a song which was a slur upon 
the grandeur of her art. Paul started up. 


A siren’s son 


56 

“Oh! don’t!” he cried; he put out an arm as 
though to ward off a blow. At the same mo- 
ment the door was pushed a little open, and 
Katherine saw Maurice Dulaney standing on the 
threshold. 

She was vexed, but she did not show it. Nod- 
ding to him carelessly, she began with the next 
verse of her dubious song. Paul’s face had taken 
on a hot red. He sprang to her side, putting 
a hand over her lips. 

“Don’t. Please don’t.” 

She pushed away his hand and laughed. 

“You are not polite, Paul. Maurice, when 
did you return.!^” 

She left the piano and came toward Dulaney. 
The perfume of her floated to him. He stood 
looking at her gravely; the long plain lines of her 
dress showed the sinuous grace of her figure; 
her eyes met his. 

“I am just back. Dennis said you were here. 

I am sorry if I interrupted you.” 

“I was just giving Paul his first concert. He 
is not very enthusiastic — as you see.” 

“Oh! but the first time you sang, I was. The 
first,” cried the boy eagerly,“that was so strange 
and so sweet, and it made me feel— I cannot tell 
you how I felt.” 


A siren’s son 


57 


Katherine smiled, but a little wearily. 

“What was it you sang?” 

Maurice spoke. He was still standing, though 
Katherine had sunk upon the sofa. 

“Oh, an old song I picked up somewhere. I 
don’t know where they come from, these songs 
of mine. This was a doleful thing, so of course 
it suited Paul.” 

“It was beautiful,” said the boy. He came 
nearer, and threw his arm about his mother. She 
laid her lips lightly upon his forehead. 

“I did not believe it was you, singing, just 
now,” he whispered. 

“Why not?” 

“Oh, because, it was not like you. I can’t tell, 
but it was like something that did not belong to 
you.” 

She looked up at Dulaney, and laughed. 

“See what it is to have a fearless critic. 
Maurice, will you have a glass of wine?” 

He took it from Paul, silently. 

“Sit down, and tell me what is going on,” she 
continued. “Paul, close the piano. We will 
not have any more music.” 

The boy did as he was bid, and coming back 
threw himself down by his mother. His head 
rested against her arm, and now and then she 
touched his hair with her long white fingers. 


58 


A siren’s son 


“There is not much to tell,” said Maurice. 
“The city is very warm, stifling, and everything 
is dull. I saw Mrs. Fortescue the day before 
she left for the Pier.” 

“Did you.?” 

“She was looking thin, I thought; but she has 
a certain something that makes her attractive.” 

“Natalie,” said Katherine, slowly, “is the cne 
sincere woman I have ever known. I never 
liked women — it was their fault, not mine — but 
Natalie is different.” 

“Who is she?” asked Paul. He looked up, 
interested. The wine had flushed his cheeks 
and given his eyes new brightness. 

“Oh! you will meet her soon enough. Are you 
tired of me, already.?” 

“Tired of you! how can one tire of you, when 
they do not know what you are.? I don’t un- 
derstand you. I am always finding you differ- 
ent. Before I came, when I was at -at home, 
I used to puzzle and wonder, too. But it was 
not like it is now. I feel all the time as if some- 
thing was going away from me, and something 
else coming.” 

“Paul,” she said caressingly, “go to bed. It 
is late, and I want to talk secrets with Maurice.” 

He looked at her, to tell if she were in earnest, 


A siren’s son 


59 


and then, after a moment, went out. Katherine 
rose, and crossed over to Dulaney. 

“Shall I sing for you.?” she asked. Her voice, 
in its strange foreign sweetness, made his pulses 
bound. Her face bent towards him in the half 
light. Her parted lips, the unwonted softness 
of her eyes, thrilled him. He drew a long breath, 
and his voice had a little hoarse sound as he 
spoke. 

“No, do not sing.” 

“Then will you entertain me.?” 

She had turned away, and now leaned against 
the window, looking out at the star-lit sky. 

“To-night is the first time I have sung for so 
long. I always feel so happy when I can sing, 
no matter what it is I am singing. Maurice, — 
did Natalie say anything about me?” 

He flushed a little. “Oh, what all say, that 
you are a witch, a siren, a picture without a 
soul.” 

He did not speak easily. She stood quite still, 
her eyes fixed upon the twisted silver of the 
Pleiades. The man rose and joined her. Her 
hand lay in its bare whiteness on the sill. His 
own fingers closed about the wood-work, and 
held it as a vise. 

“Paul is too much like his father,” she said. 


6o 


A siren’s son 


suddenly; “he was a dreamer, and what are 
dreams, in this existence of ours?” 

“There are some that are hard to put away.” 
He was looking at her fixedly. “There are 
some that are more to us than onr life.” 

She heard and recognized the passion in his 
voice, and knew its import. She turned her eyes 
on his, half closing them. 

“I hope Paul will not be quick to fall in love. 
Men are so stupid when they are in love.” 

“Are they?” 

His face had whitened. She cculd see that, 
even in the dull light. 

“I am going away before long,” Katherine be- 
gan, slowly; “that will be an education for 
Paul. To see is to know, and to know is to 
enjoy intuitively. Now he is the result of an 
isolated life, with morbid teachings. 1 have 
fourteen years' work to undo, but I do not de- 
spair, for it is not my creed to despair of any- 
thing.” 

“Katherine!” 

“Well?” She looked up at him curiously. 

“Did you ever — I mean in the very beginning 
— love Jean Lemain?” 

She was clasping and unclasping a bracelet 
she wore, and she answered thoughtfully: 


A siren’s son 


6i 


“I was seventeen, Maurice, and I did not 
know what love was. I did not know the first 
letter of it. I did not know what I was, myself. 
Since then — well — I know there can be love.” 

In the sudden, swift glance which reached 
him, he felt his pulses throb, and his blood seemed 
suddenly set afire. He made a step forward, 
and his hand would have covered hers, but with 
ophidian quickness she drew away from him. 

“Will you close the window, Maurice.? I feel 
mosquitoes. Do not you.? — By the way, don’t 
get in the habit of calling me Katherine. It 
would not do in public, and habit is so strong. 
Will you sit down.? I am afraid I am getting 
sleepy.” 

“I am going,” he said. His voice was very 
low, and he was not looking at her. 

“Must you, so early.?” She put out her hand. 
“Well, good-night.” 

He looked down at the well-shaped hand, the 
fine pink nails, the clear diamonds of her rings, 
but he did not touch it. 

“Good-night,” he said. 

Before Paul went to bed he stood awhile by 
his window, for it was very warm. He could 
hear the murmur of the waves as he watched 


62 


A siren’s son 


the trail of the moon on them. The sea lay 
very calm and still, almost motionless. 

“But what of the wrecks — the wrecks, where 
the ships and their Captains lie.?” 





'"'A 


4 


CHAPTER VII. 

The summer days came swiftly, and died lin- 
geringly, as though sad to go. The harvest holds 
ripened, and the golden grain stood high. In 
the vineyards the purple grapes hung. At the 
hotel, the guests danced, bathed, flirted, and 
found life as they made it, a pastime. Pleasures, 
like garlands, twined about them, and flowers 
of to-day made wreaths which on the morrow 
were forgotten. There beauty conquered and 
reigned; there ambition and strength were weak- 
ened; there sorrow hid her face but- -yet was 
there. 

About the pillars of Katherine’s home the 
trailing clematis crept and bloomed more fully, 
the golden-starred - lilies made the air heavily 
sweet, but the violets were dead. Katherine 
was still there, and for once the quiet rested, 
without boring her. Paul had met some of the 
guests, but had not fancied them especially. He 
asked Maurice more than once to go again to 
63 


64 A siren’s son 

the lighthouse, but the other laughingly refuse J. 

“Too much of a gooH thing, Paul,” he said. 

One morning the boy did not come to break- 
fast, nor appear all day. Katherine felt uneasy, 
and in the evening she sent for Maurice. They 
were drinking iced tea when Paul appeared. 
He looked tired, and his boots were damp. 

“I have been to Light House Island.” He 
showed a string of dilapidated fish. Maurice 
looked at him sharply. 

“What did you find there, thei day I left you 
to amuse yourself, mon ami?''' 

The boy flushed. “Nothing.” 

Katherine put a slice of lemon between her 
teeth, meditatively. 

“Do get into some decent clothes, Paul,” she 
said; “these smell of sea water.” 

When he left the room she looked at Dulaney. 
“What is it — are there any women over there.?” 

“A few Sisters, and the lighthouse keeper’s 
wife. No, I do not think there is any such at- 
traction.” 

“I want Paul to make a good match,” she 
went on, slowly; “one in every v\ay fitted to 
him. I mean to let him have no such follies as 
boys of his age are apt to encounter. I shall 
teach him how to look at women, and life.” 


A siren’s son 


65 


“Follies are sometimes hard to prevent,” said 
the man, a little bitterly; “how will you go 
about it?” 

“I will show him, how what most of us call 
love, is in reality the lowest and most selfish 
part of our own natures, of the body, rather than 
the soul. I will prove to him the worthlessness 
of it, how it eats itself up, and how it is the last 
thing to be sought in a compact where two are 
to be joined forever. Oh, I shall guard him the 
more jealously, because I myself have not been 
always wise.” 

“Do you think any one ever learned, except 
by experience? And there are some of us fools 
enough to prefer that experience, bitter though 
it may be, to the doing without it.” 

“I am not sure — but what I like olives better 
than candy,” said the woman, with a slow soft 
smile. 

“What are you talking about?” cried the boy, 
entering, in a fresh white suit. 

“Olives. Have some?” 

She drew a chair forward and lifted a lump of 
sugar daintily: “How many, Paul? I am al- 
ways forgetting.” 

She made no allusion to his trip. The boy 
was cross and out of sorts. He had not seen 


66 


A siren’s son 


Margaret, though he had scoured the place, and 
waited in hopeless impatience for her. In truth, 
she had been severely reproved, and charged on 
no account to let such an encounter take place 
again. She had been given a great many Aves to 
say, in penance, but she did not forget the little 
prayer she had promised him. That very day 
she had been thinking of him, while she worked 
an altar cloth. She was thinking so intently 
that her needle slipped and ran into her finger 
so that the blood came, but she did not cry out. 

Meantime Paul drank his tea in silence. 

“Heigh-ho!” said Katherine, rising; “a few 
more days of this, and then I shall cease being 
a vegetable. I shall begin to live again, and 
doubly, now that I have a son to introduce into 
society.” 

“Society — society,” said Maurice; “how I hate 
the word. It is rightly summed up as a barrel 
of eels packed together, each one trying to get 
his head above the others.” 

“Carlyle had dyspepsia,” said Katherine, 
lightly; “and so will you, mentally, if you in- 
dulge in him too copiously. Ah, here comes 
the mail.” 

She took her letters, throwing herself on alow 
cushion to read them. She wore a dress that was 


A siren’s son 


67 


like a cloud. Her hair was fastened with a clus- 
ter of emeralds, and the same stones were in her 
ears. She broke the seals of her letters, and 
ran her eyes over them carelessly. 

“Mr. Forster has raised his prices on roses. 
This bill is absurd.” She opened another and 
yet another. Then a bit of pale scented paper 
crumpled suddenly in her hand. She looked at 
Maurice Dulaney with a quick, ireful glance. 
That gentleman was teaching Paul a certain 
game of solitaire and did not look up. Perhaps 
it was just as well, for her glance was not a 
pleasant one. She smoothed out the sheet and 
re-read the contents. Presently she rose sud- 
denly. 

“I have a headache. You will excuse me.?” 
She spoke with a certain abruptness. Paul 
sprang up. 

“Shall I get you your lavender salts, mother — 
or is there anything — .?” 

“Nothing. I will go and lie down.” 

She kissed him gently. The emeralds in her 
hair flashed and caught the light. She did not 
offer her hand to Maurice. He stood looking at 
her silently, but when she was gone he pushed 
the cards away impatiently. 

“There, try for yourself, I am going to smoke.” 


68 


A siren’s son 


Up-stairs, Katherine took the stones out of her 
hair and let it fall down about her face. Then 
she let Marie unfasten her dress and bring her a 
white wool wrapper, after which she sent her 
away and turning cut the light sat down by the 
low window, resting her elbows on the sill. 

Maurice went out, in among the flower beds 
to where there was a low summer house, scree led 
by vines which ran riotously. He sat down, and 
lighted a cigar, feeling glad of the solitude and 
stillness, which was only broken by the sound of 
the crickets and other night insects. 

Through the interlacing vines and lattice work 
of tlie building the moon’s face showed, and 
cast a white line of light across the floor. 

He threw his head back, resting it against 
his arm. It seemed to him, somehow, that a 
crisis had come in his life. That the tide which 
meets us, and which is to be taken at its flood, 
or lost, was before him. What was there in Kath- 
erine’s face, as she said good-night, to call into 
being these new thoughts.*^ He had not had an 
especially happy life, so far as his eight and thirty 
years had told it, but had rather looked for figs 
of thistles, grapes of thorns. He had known 
Katherine more years than he could count on 
both hands. Perhaps that was why he had 


A siren’s son 


69 


never found another woman to his fancy. As 
another man’s wife, he had tried conscientiously 
to always remember it. As separated from that 
man, her own reserve had fixed a gulf between 
them. Now he was dead, now she was as free by 
law as God had made her by nature, there was 
nothing between his love for her except — what 
was it? A nameless something that built a wall 
between them, a wall he could no more pene- 
trate than he could the mystery of his own, be- 
ing. And yet — how he loved her! He had often 
thought of what his life might be with her — she 
who was coldly sweet to all men, giving him 
alone true sweetness. She who was in some 
ways most unwomanly — being most womanly to 
him. Dear God! How he loved her! 

The soft scent of the lilies stole in upon him. 
It was like her hair, when once a wisp of it had 
blown and loosened. The moon shone in stead- 
ily. It was like her face, so cold and yet so soft. 
And those bright shining stars, they were like 
the jewels that had clasped her hair. 

He closed his eyes. The cigar he held went 
out. It was very still. The flowers were all 
asleep, only the great white asters and lilies 
nodded drowsily. The warm, still summer 
night, and the voice of the sea lulling the stars to 


70 


A siren’s son 


sleep and playing with the tawny shore, gather- 
ing shells and tossing them away for pastime, 
made a fit setting for his thoughts. 

In the dark shadows of the night we lie awake 
and think of some great joy come newly to us, 
forgetting that it is as the other shadows of the 
night, to lengthen and grow more and more real, 
and then vanish. 

In the dark shadows of the night we hear happy 
voices calling us, we see faces which are shadow 
faces of the past, we — as little children fancying 
the face of God, feel now His infinitude — lookup 
and about through the shadows and cry, “Where 
is God?” And the shadows answer, “Infinity 
is everywhere.” 

In the dark shadows of the night we lie upon 
our beds awake and think of some great sorrow 
that has come and laid its hand upon us. In the 
slow long hours we lie awake and see past hap- 
pinesses like a train of pale ghosts flit through 
the darkness, and we know they are but shadows. 
We do not even reach out our hands to them, 
for we know they will melt within our hold. 
And we — as children crying in the dark and 
fearing for the light — cry, “Where is God? Who 
has at any time seen God?” But the shadows 
are around and about us and we cry —“There is 
no God.” 


A siren’s son 


71 


In the dark shadows of the night we lie awake 
and there is neither joy nor sorrow in our hearts, 
for joys and sorrows have lost themselves within 
the shadows and mingled and become of them, 
and we, like children rested, look not, nor fear 
for either nor cry any more — “Where is God?” 
Within us is that which God hath given us of 
Himself. We find none greater — and the rest 
are shadows. 

* * 5 |{ 5 |{ 

A bird’s cry came up suddenly from the low 
grass. The man in the summer house started, 
and rose to his feet. Along the narrow graveled 
path about which the sleeping flowers brushed 
their cool dew-washed faces, there came a tall, 
white figure, most ghost-like in its dim apparel, 
most human in its warm and living beauty. The 
figure, a woman’s figure, came on, stepping 
cautiously. The hand which held the hood of 
the long cloak about her face was white in the 
moonlight, like to some spirit’s hand. An emer- 
ald on it flashed and sparkled. She came quite 
up to the door. The man was hidden by the 
shadows. 

“Do not be afraid,” he said; “it is only me.” 

She started, and her hands fell. The hood 
slipped back and showed her face. He came 
nearer. 


72 


A siren’s son 


“Has an unccnscious cerebration brought you? 
I was thinking of you.” 

She drew back a little. 

“I came because it was too early to sleep, 
and the air of my room seemed suffocating. I 
thought you were with Paul.” 

“No, I too found the air suffocating. It stifled 
me. But one can breathe here ” 

“It was imprudent of me to come, of course,” 
she went on, hastily; “with my throat, it was 
the height of imprudence. I do not know why 
I did so foolish a thing. I will go back, now.” 

He put out an eager detaining hand: “Why 
should you? It is so early, not ten o’clock. 
And look — the moon makes everything like day. 
I can see you as plainly as by a lamp, even to the 
little curl of your hair. And your wrap is so 
thick. See, if you sit here the vines shut out 
even the lily scents. And I have been waiting 
for you — so long.” 

His voice sounded with a ring foreign even to 
himself. She hesitated, then came inside and 
sat down. He stood before her, his eyes fixed 
upon her face — her beautiful, troubled face. Ah! 
Christ! how he would like to carry all her 
troubles in his arms! 

“I wanted to see you,” she began, slowly, “but 


A siren’s son 


73 


certainly this is not the place or time. Perhaps, 
though, it is best I say it now, and not wait. I 
have had a letter from Natalie.” 

She paused. He leaned over and drew her 
wrap a little closer. 

“From Natalie 

“She tells me,” went on Katherine, speaking 
steadily and forcing herself to look straight 
ahead, “that you and I are being spoken of to- 
gether. That our names are coupled. That 
I — who have held myself so high — am declared 
to be like the rest — no better, no worse. And 
you — you are to blame. Can you guess what 
it means to me, to have my name linked with 
yours, as a by-word for every gossip.?” 

She put up her hands to hide her face. He 
knelt down and tried to draw them away. His 
long and tried control gave way before the pas- 
sion of his love for her, his desire of her. 

“Katherine! Katherine! listen! Why may 
they not speak of us together.? What reason is 
there, why we should not love each other.? 
What decalogue forbids.?” 

For answer she laughed — a little low laugh. 

“None, but my own. I obey none but my 
own. My creed is free from dogmas. Love 
each other! That is folly. I love myself, and 


74 


A siren’s son 


iny voice — which is myself. Bui; you, what are 
you more than any other man?” 

“Nothing.” His face had grown very pale. 
“Only, I love you.” 

“I do not want it. I give you back your gift. 
I give it gladly. I give it just as you gave — never 
a bit gone. I want you to go away from me, 
to give no room for any idle talk, and let me be 
as 1 have always been.” 

The cold hardness of her voice steadied him. 
“Do not fear. I will go,” he said. 

“I liked you well enough when you were but 
my friend, my counsellor. Ah, what good advice 
you gave me, how practical you were, always! 
One would have fancied Jean Lernain was with 
me.” 

“Do you remember the first time you told me 
of him, of his existence, of all the troubles you 
had found so hard to bear? I remember it all 
so well. There were two heavy tears on your 
lashes Do you know how I had to hold myself 
in a leash, to keep from telling you, then? Do 
you remember, afterward, how we were in Paris 
together — at Spa — and the night you sang in 
Munich? The little supper we had, and how 
bright the moon was? You wore emeralds that 
night, and lilies. I thought you were like a lily, 
but I said: ‘She is another man’s wife.’” 


A siren’s son 


75 


“I am as far from you now as I was then. I 
put myself out of any man’s reach. I do not 
forget that you have been kind to me. I am 
sorry it is necessary that we do not see each 
other. I wanted Paul to have you for a friend. 
You would be a better one than those he is likely 
to have.’’ 

Her words came with slow distinctness. Her 
hands were locked together in her lap, and when 
he tried to touch them she pushed him away. 

“Listen,” she went on; “why do you care so 
much.^ I would not care that much for any one. 
A hundred years from now, what good will all 
this spent force do.^* What will it amount to.^ 
It will not be a memory.” 

“Love is eternal.” 

She laughed, “Only when it is ideal, and 
we can never realize the ideal. No, no, Mau- 
rice. It is on Paul’s account I am sorry. I 
wanted you to be with him and to show him the 
world, to — ” 

“To ruin him, perhaps. It is quite as well 
some other man is to do that. I am glad I am 
done with it, glad I am done with it all. You 
are a wonderful woman, Katherine. You have 
everything, and more than your share; only I 
sometimes wonder if you are human, for you 
have no human feelings.” 


76 


A siren’s son 


Again she laughed, but there was a forced ring 
to it, and to her words. 

“You are so stagy, Maurice. You absolutely 
rant. And I — must go in. I have been too 
long, already. Is this good-bye.^” 

She held out her hand. He took it now, 
holding it fast between his own. Was this 
good-bye.** 

A sudden shadow fell across the threshold, a 
startled voice sounded. 

“I was looking for Maurice. — Mother!” 

He stood staring at them, open-eyed; at the 
tall, white draped figure with her cool hand in 
the man’s burning one, and her troubled eyes 
half sadly fixed upon his face. 

“I — I thought you had a headache. I did 
not know you were here.” 

“So I had. I came to be in the air a little. 
Now I am ready to go back. Will you take me, 
cherieV'' 

She put her hand caressingly within the boy’s, 
and they went down the narrow walk together. 
Maurice stood still, watching them. Once Kath- 
erine put up her hand to draw her wrap closer, 
and he saw the light flash on the ring she wore. 
So this, then, was the end. His devotion, his 
friendship, went without a word. Well, let it 


A siren’s son 


77 


be. She had told him hope’s anchor sank. It 
was his own folly. As she said, what would it 
matter, a hundred years hence, nay, less than 
that, even did he live the three score years and 
ten.^^ 

He moved a little. His cigar, half burned, 
fell to the floor. A lizard darted out and ran 
across the line of white moonlight. He stood 
looking up at the dull night clouds. He was a 
man of strong passions, but equally strong con- 
trol. He never drank too much, any more than 
he over-ate; but he had a good appetite. He 
seemed to-night to have let something within 
him escape, and now it was gone he felt he must 
make it up — but how.? He knew there was that 
which was stronger than love in the world. He 
knew with sacrifice comes strength, and with 
strength, achievement. What had he accom- 
plished in these past years that he had known 
her.? Nothing. He had held his heart well, that 
was all. Now let him see what he would do 
without her. 

Paul had said, “What do you believe in.?” Let 
him find out now. Let him believe in himself. 
He had seen men go to the devil often enough 
for such a cause; he would not be one of them. 
But he would like to have taken her in his arms. 


78 


A siren’s son 


He left the summer house as a cloud passed 
over the moon’s face: the path was darkened. 

In the mcrning there was a letter for Paul. It 
had the scent of tobacco clinging to it. 

‘Ht is my earnest wish that we meet again,” 
the lines read, “and after all the world is small 
enough for us to cherish such a hope, even 
though we go to separate ends of it. You know 
already how much I wish for you in life, and 
that you make the game worth the candle. You 
will find in it all I promised you, and how you 
use it will be how you find it. I do not say 
write to me, because writing will mean nothing. 
And when I see you again we will be glad there 
were no letters. 

“Your friend, always, 

“M. Dulaney.” 

Katherine found the opened letter on her 
breakfast tray, when it came up at noon. There 
was a bunch of lilies there too. Paul had gath- 
ered them fresh for her, but she thrust them 
away impatiently. She put down the sheet, and 
ate her grapes listlessly. When Paul came in 
she was still in her wrapper, with her hair loose. 

“Is it getting gray, cherie?''^ she asked, thrust- 


A siren’s son 


79 


ing her hands through it. He shook his head. 

"‘Mother, why has Maurice gone.?” 

She flushed ever so slightly. 

“Paul, the less one questions the whims of 
others, the better. It is enough that he has 
gone. You miss him. I am sorry for that. But 
wait until we are in Paris. You will not miss 
him there, and I have so many friends for you. 
Then in Paris one would not miss one’s soul ” 

“I care about Maurice,” said the boy, slowly, 
“Sometimes, mother, I am so sorry we are going 
away. And sometimes I am thinking of my 
father, and the old life there. It seems so long 
ago.” 

She did not reply, but the next day she began 
to pack. There was a damp mist falling and 
covering the sea, when they left. Katherine 
twisted a scarf closer about her throat, and 
shivered. Paul looked out toward Light House 
Island, but the fog was so thick he could not 
see a stone’s throw, and there were no bells 
ringing. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


It was early in November, and a dry, powdery 
snow was thickening the air and whitening the 
houses and streets. In spite of it Broadway 
was thronged, for it was shopping hour, and 
the coachmen were not uncomfortable in their 
thick fur capes and rugs. 

Natalie Fortescue had taken a cup of boidliion 
and a cracker, at Mayiilarde’ s, and now put 
up her umbrella as she started to cross Broad- 
way with the quick step which kept the color 
in her face. She was a tall, slim woman, 
without any actual beauty to justify her attract- 
iveness. She looked taller than usual to-day, 
in her straight brown dress. A small turban sur- 
mounted a coil of brown hair, leaving a clear 
line of white above straight brows and direct 
eyes. She was going to see the Remains, or 
more correctly, Mrs. Kingston and Paul Remain. 
They had reached New York the day before. 
Natalie had not seen them since they were to- 
gether in Paris, more than two years ago. 

Natalie’s affection for Katherine was of a very 
80 


A siren’s son 


8i 


true nature. She was more than ten years 
younger, but she looked more than twenty-six. 
Perhaps it was because she wore all her hair off 
her face and was rather assertive. Her hus- 
band had been in Colorado more than a year, 
looking after some silver mines there, from 
which he had already realized a fortune. He 
was very much in love with his wife, giving her 
a strong, honest affection which asked little re- 
turn. He never even admitted to himself that 
there was anything lacking in her. She was so 
much cleverer than he— he always felt that 
— and it was natural for her to like what he did 
not care for. And then, she was not demon- 
strative. He wrote to her very often, and she 
answered his letters every week. It had never 
come to Natalie to think much about whether 
he loved her or not. She had married him be- 
cause she hated being poor and teaching music. 
And she had always disliked the smell of 
cleaned gloves. 

She ran up-stairs to Katherine’s apartment, 
and pushed aside the heavy swinging portiere 
without ceremony. 

The room she entered was large, with a good 
deal of light in it. The furniture was heavy and 
there were some handsome bronzes. The pic- 


82 


A siren’s son 


tures were mostly studies. The light, meeting 
her eyes suddenly from the dark hall, prevented 
her at first from seeing a man’s figure upon the 
sofa. The figure, however, rose languidly and 
advanced to meet her. 

“Why, Natalie!” 

“Well, Paul.” 

She gave him her hand, but he stooped and 
kissed her lips. 

“I’ve not seen you in three years, Natalie. 
How pretty you are!” 

“No, not that.” 

She sat down and began pulling off her long 
gloves. Paul seated himself beside her. His face 
was thin, and the heavy lines under his eyes 
made them look deeper. He had lost the look 
almost entirely that had characterized him as a 
boy. His face wore indifference, instead of 
earnestness; careless enjoyment of self, rather 
than intentness of purpose. There was a bottle 
of Apollinaris water and a thin goblet by the 
sofa. Natalie looked from it to the man — for 
Paul had become a man in a number of years 
that for the most part keep men boys. 

“Where is Katherine, Paul.?” 

“She is having her hair washed. Shall I go and 
ask if you may corne in?” 


A STRKN’s son 83 

“No, I will wait and talk with you. You got in 
yesterday.?” 

“Yes, and we had no end of trouble; such 
carelessness I never imagined. Nothing ready 
here, scarcely, and no one with any head. I 
did fairly well, though.” 

“Where.?” 

“At. Niblo's. ’Pon my word, Natalie, I’m in 
love.” 

“No!” 

“Fact, with a pair of ankles. Such a pair! 
She dances like a dream — and such ankles, 
Natalie! I forgot everything, watching her.” 

“I should have thought you saw enough ballet 
in Paris,” 

“Yes, ballet — but not ankles. I am going 
again. I wouldn’t miss them for the world. I 
shall send her La France roses to-morrow. Or 
do you like Nephetos best.?” 

Natalie yawned. “Either. Tell me how you 
left the Freres, and the De Mocques, and all the 
people in the pension where I was. Tell me of 
dear old Pere Pierre and of Madame Celeste. I 
am eager to hear of them all.” 

“My mother will give you all their messages; 
they were shrieking them after us as long as 
hearing lasted. I wished myself as deaf as our 


84 


A siren’s son 


siiisse, who told me he had heard but one sound 
in ten years, and that was his wife, when he 
came in Saturday night.” 

“Dear old Paris. I wonder will I go there 
when I die.-*” said Natalie, laughing. 

“‘Dear old Paris,’ is quite as wicked as ever. 
Quite as many scandals, and murders, and all 
unrighteousness. But we left there months ago. 
We have been at Interlaken, where there was a 
girl with eyes like you; but she never said any- 
thing but ^Oiii, Monsieur,' and ^Non Mon- 
sieur. 

“How interesting!” 

“And then we were in Baden-Baden. It was 
at a roulette table there that I heard of Maurice 
Dulaney. His address of April loth came out 
in several foreign papers.” 

“I read it,” said Natalie, quickly ; “he has the 
finest ideas on political economy I ever knew, 
and expresses himself wonderfully. Do you 
ever hear from him.?” 

“No, I have never seen him since the summer 
we were all together. It seems a long time.” 

He thought suddenly of the gray-walled con- 
vent, and the way the sea dashed up against 
Light House Island. He had a great way of 
remembering places; he even had not forgotten 


A ?iren’s son 85 

how it looked in the low marsh lands of the 
Carolinas. 

“When he became famous, he forgot,” said 
Natalie, lightly. “Paul, go and tell Katherine 
to put on a wig, if necessary, but to let me see 
her.” 

When he had left the room she got up, and 
crossed it impatiently, stopping before a pier 
glass to look at her own face. She felt a cer- 
tain jar upon her nerves, just how and why she 
could not well define. She had kissed Paul 
good-bye the day she left Paris and he had seen 
her well in the coach. She wondered if it had 
not been ten years, instead of not quite three. 

Katherine pushed open the folding doors, and 
appeared. Her fluffy, fresh-washed hair was 
about her face, and softened it. She was effusive 
in her reception of Natalie. Paul drew up a 
sofa and they sat down, with hands locked, after 
the fashion of fond women. 

“But you must have some luncheon,” Kather- 
ine cried: “Paul, ring the bell.” 

But the other protested. “I had some bouil- 
lion. I do not want anything more.” 

“How well you are looking, Natalie! You 
are a woman who never gets old.” 

“Because I was born old. I was old from the 
beginning.” 


86 


A siren’s son 


“Nonsense. And what do you think of Paul?” 

“He has grown old,” said Natalie. She was 
a woman who said a great deal of what she 
thought, but she rarely offended. 

“Yes,” said Paul, “the freshness of the heart 
has faded, but all the same, I am in love for the 
first time.” 

“In love,” cried Katherine, arching her brows; 
“a capacity I thought forever latent in you, Paul.” 

“With a pair of ankles, Nothing more. 
I did not dare look any higher, for fear she should 
have a nez retrousse and slanting eyes.” 

“Slanting eyes are not so bad,” said Katherine, 
thoughtfully. She had turned her head away, and 
was idly pulling at the fringe of a tidy. 

“To think of Maurice blossoming out as an 
authority on political economy, and the labor 
question.” 

“He is a very able man,” said Natalie. “He 
has written an article recently, which 1 under- 
stand is decidedly j owerful.” 

Paul got up and stretched himself. “I wish it 
were dme to go to Niblo’s,” he said. 

Pt ^sently he went out, nodding carelessly to 
Mrs, Fortescue. He was not particularly fond 
of h ^r. She rather irritated him. He was not 
fon' ’ of any woman individually, unless it was 
h^*f Hother. 


A siren’s son 


87 


After he was gone, and they had talked about 
old days, and some little of the future — not quite 
as other women talk, because they were neither 
quite as other women — Katherine said again: 
“What do you think of Paul?” 

“He has deteriorated. He went forward so 
rapidly that now he is going back with equal 
velocity. You must look after him, Katherine.” 

“Paul has changed.” She rose, and crossed 
to a low ottoman. “I feel it every day. He is 
only like other men, though,! suppose. He is 
fond of excitement, but so am I. He drinks, 
sometimes, but he is not often drunk. He has 
too much life not to have made the most of all 
the chances in it.” 

“Has he made the most of them?” 

“When we first went abroad,” continued the 
elder woman, not heeding the question, “Paul 
was so quiet, and always pondering, and won- 
dering, and searching into things. He was worse 
than one of Tolstoi’s books. Naturally,! wanted 
to cultivate a little life and youth in him, and 
tried to accordingly. There was Sir Granville 
Lane, who was with him continually. ! some- 
times thought, perhaps too much.”^ 

“! should judge so,” said Natalie, dryly. 

“! don’t know, though,” went on Katherine; 


88 


A siren’s son 


“Sir Granville has plenty of sense; and if he is 
fond of horses, they say he pays his debts.” 

“Does he, indeed?” 

“Paul has never fallen very deeply into debt, 
never more than once or twice. And, praise 
Allah ! he has never gotten into any woman 
scrapes. He has never fallen in love. I have 
taught him that lesson well; and for the rest, I 
look for certain follies in youth.” 

Natalie rose to go. “Good-bye, Katherine. 
You and Paul come when you can. When do 
you sing?” 

“The 25 th is my first night. Of course F 11 see 
you before then.” 

As she crossed the street, she noticed the 
house opposite. The blinds were fast closed, 
and there was crape upon the door. It waved 
lightly in the wind as she looked, and Natalie 
shuddered. It was as though a little low voice 
had suddenly cried to her: 

“This, then, is the end; the end of life. YV'hat 
the beginning? For the body perisheth utterly, 
and now. Lord, where is my hope? 

“All power, all honor, all greatness but amount 
to this, for all go to the same place, and Thou 
makest his beauty to consume away.” 

But there was another voice which cried: 


A siren’s son 89 

“The beginning of life is death.” And again: 
“Love not pleasure, love God.” 

Up-stairs from the window Katherine saw it 
too, and turned away quickly. She felt it a bad 
omen, to look upon death. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Natalie was at home on Thursdays. She was 
fond of drawing all sorts of people around her, 
and she generally succeeded. There was a cer- 
tain magnetism about the woman which was con- 
ceded by nearly all who knew her. She was not 
entirely social, but she was fond of looking at 
things and people as a study; and she found 
much to amuse her, even within the narrow limits 
of her own world. Perhaps she chafed against 
the restraints and absurd tyranny of that world, 
more than most women. She sometimes wished 
herself back among the New Hampshire hills 
where she had grown up. It would be a free life, 
at least. As a girl, she had rebelled against her 
lot, and had seized upon the offer of marriage 
with Fortescue as a means of escape from the 
wearying round of music lessons and the study 
of economy. She had been full of a belief and 
faith in her own capacity. Now she was not 
so sure of this as she had been ten years ago, 
and she was more sure of her own weakness. 

90 


A siren’s son 


91 


She sometimes wondered with a certain half un- 
conscious envy, how it would be to have some 
great absorbing love, to lend an interest to life. 
She had been, if not a loving, at least a true 
wife. But she asked herself how much of that 
was due to the fact that temptation had not 
come in her way. Therefore she was not in- 
tolerant of others. 

It was the Thursday after she had seen Kath- 
erine, and she was thinking, not so much of 
Katherine as of Paul It was too early to look 
for guests yet, but she was dressed and down- 
stairs, The room Was full of rose scents, and 
the shaded lamp’s softened light was becoming. 
Natalie looked very well, but she felt out of 
touch with her surroundings, and an uncom- 
fortable restlessness made her wish it were not 
her afternoon, and that she might go for a long 
walk somewhere. 

She heard the bell ring, and stood waiting, 
with fixed expectancy, for the door to open. 
Her face took on a swift and real pleasure as 
Maurice Dulaney advanced towards her. She 
gave him both hands, and her eyes smiled at 
him with direct frankness. 

“What good fortune brings you to me? You 
have played the hermit so long, I confess I had 


92 


A SIREN S SON 


given you up. But it was good of you to choose 
a day when I am out of sorts with all the people 
I know.” 

“What a sweeping assertion! Is it possible I 
may dare hope to be the one favored exception.?” 

“For the time being, yes. There, I know 
you do not like tea. What may I offer you.?” 

“On the contrary,! am very fond of it, on oc- 
casions like this.” 

She looked at him intently. She was right 
about the slanting eyes. 

She was very glad there was no one else. She 
hoped the damp murkiness outside would dis- 
courage any other visitors. She felt a certain 
congeniality of spirit with Maurice Dulaney, 
which she had never fully defined. Only he 
seemed to touch and play upon a chord which 
others failed to reach, or even to suspect, albeit 
it was the finest. 

“Now, tell me about yourself,” she said, lean- 
ing comfortably back and meditatively sipping 
her tea. 

“But that will be very egotistical.” 

“I like egotism— sometimes.” 

“There is not much to tell,” said Dulaney, 
slowly. “I have been very busy, because I have 
been full of my work. It is tiring, without be- 


A siren’s son 


93 


ing wearisome. That is why I am here. I felt 
that seeing you would be a rest.” 

Natalie’s cheeks showed a pink stain of color, 
but she did not make any answer. 

“You know I have gone into this heart and 
soul,” went on Maurice, smiling. He was not 
looking at Mrs. Fortescue, and so did not seethe 
little pink flush which was like the tinted glow 
of one of her own lamps. “I have a lecture at 
Chickering Hall Sunday afternoon, and another 
on Wednesday.” 

“Have you.? 1 should like to hear you.” 

“You would most probably be bored.” 

“What do you call it.?” 

“Liberty. But I am not plagiarizing Mil).” 

“I do not believe I should be bored,” said 
Natalie. “Not so much as by many of the ser- 
mons I hear. Fancy a man preaching about 
the immortality of the soul, in such a way that 
half his audience are asleep — and the other half 
wish they were. Such a subject — and such a 
result!” 

“Do they preach that way? I do not hear 
many sermons.?’ 

“If there is a question of moment like that, if 
one really believed so vital a point was to be 
discussed, would it not inspire some fire, some 
force, something more than mere platitudes.?” 


94 


A siren’s son 


“Perhaps — where the soul can be discerned.” 

She did not recognize his quotation, for Na- 
talie was not fond of poetry. 

“I think I shall come to hear you lecture, at 
all events,” she said after a pause. “You might 
at least teach me something of your views. 1 
am afraid I am very ignorant, and I do not read 
many books.” 

“I try to suggest, rather than teach,” said 
Maurice. 

“That is better, and much less intimidating. 
I shall certainly come to hear you.” 

“You had better not. My doctrines are not 
always pleasant, for those who wear purple and 
fine linen. They are rather for those who do 
not fare sumptuously every day.” 

“Oh! I know you are a socialist.” 

“There are a number of meanings to the word. 
Can you define what you mean by it .?” 

“I do not believe I want to try,” said Natalie, 
with a swift change of voice and look. 

There was a silence, for Maurice forgot him- 
self, and his companion. His spirit had flashed 
back from the present into the past, and he was 
thinking of another woman, and the power she 
had been to him. A power before which all his 
ambitions and desires now paled and grew faint. 


A siren’s son 


95 


But then, it had been only three years, and if 
he was strong, he was very human. 

It may have been that Natalie’s mind followed 
the leadings of his own, for when she broke the 
silence it was to say: 

“And have you seen Paul Lemain.?” 

She was almost certain he started a little; cer- 
tainly he steadied his cup, for it came near fall- 
ing. 

“I have seen him once.” 

“I was there a day or two back. Katherine 
is looking well. She is a woman with the se- 
cret of perpetual youth. I wish she would give 
it to me.” 

“She had better give it to Paul.” 

“Do you think so.^” 

She rose, and crossed the room, to a picture of 
Paul taken as a boy which Katherine had given 
to her before she had seen him. She stood 
looking at it, and presently she found that Mau- 
rice had followed her and was also looking at it. 

“There is something very clean and fresh about 
this face,” said Mrs. Fortescue; “it is pleasant 
to look at. I wish — ” she hesitated. 

“It is not Paul, now.” He, too, hesitated, 
almost sorry to have said so much. Then 
something in Natalie’s face impelled him to go 


96 


A siren’s son 


on. “Katherine has not done well by the boy.” 

“Do not blame her too much,” answered Na- 
talie, almost pleadingly; “remember the sort of 
woman she is, and what her own life has been.” 

“She made her life.” He spoke sternly. 

“Circumstances alter, even if they do not en- 
tirely make all of what we are,” continued Na- 
talie. She still held PauKs picture, and was 
looking at Maurice very earnestly, because she 
felt how different her own life might have been, 
if there had been different propellers at play. 
And at the moment she felt this more keenly 
than she had ever done before. Then, too, 
though she was a woman not too weak to have 
convictions, she was always afraid of intolerance. 
As for Dulaney, he had never before discussed 
Katherine with any living soul, and he did not 
know now how it had begun. 

“If you had known the boy as I did — Gods! 
as he was when I saw him first, down there in 
that fever stricken country, he and his father. 
It would have been better if he had stayed there. 
Then he looked on life as a thing to find and 
hold the best of. Short as the good of our own 
life is, he might have held the best there was. 
Now — he is in love with a variety actress!” 

“Yes,” said Natalie, thoughtfully, “he told me 


A siren’s son 


97 


of her ankles. After all, Mr. Dulaney, remem- 
ber we are not all full of high and noble am- 
bitions. For some of us it is more comfortable 
to be commonplace.” 

She wondered if she were offending him, for 
he did not answer her at once. When he did, 
his voice was changed. 

“I may be wrong in speaking as I do, for you 
know I am little more than a novice in this work 
which has taken hold upon me. I see the long 
line of unredressed wrongs of the many stretch- 
ing out before me, and they are a stimulus to 
action. Who knows the outcome of anything.? 
Perhaps I shall find only disappointment in this, 
too. But for the time it seems to cover wounds, 
and hide bare spots, and therefore I welcome 
it. Now I have wearied you long enough. You 
know I was never a good lady’s man.” He 
smiled. 

Natalie was wondering if Katherine had ever 
loved him. 

“You have not wearied me in the least.” She 
went with him to the door and he thought, as 
he went out, that he had never before noticed 
what clear gray eyes Natalie Fortescue had. He 
wondered for a moment what sort of a man her 
husband was. And then he put them both out 
of his mind. 


98 


A siren’s son 


Natalie was very glad that for the once her re- 
ception day had not been replied to as usual. 
She was very glad none had come while Maurice 
Dulaney had been there, and she was even more 
glad that no one came now. She sat down, 
turning the lamps low until the light was very 
dim. She felt a sudden fierce pain at her heart, 
which she scarcely understood. She wondered 
why, all at once, her life seemed so useless, a 
thing of . such little moment. There was a rest- 
lessness which seemed taking possession of her. 
She wondered if it would have been different, 
had children been born to her. Heretofore she 
had been glad there had not been any. 

Outside, the rain came, mixing with the snow 
and making a dirty slush of it. The few who 
were out, wished they were in-doors. Natalie 
went to the window and stood looking out. She 
was thinking of Katherine, and wondering if in 
truth her voice, and the love she had for it, and 
for herself, sufficed her. And then she thought 
of how much it took to satisfy some; and she 
thought again of Maurice, and if he had married 
Katherine how it would have been. He would 
have been disappointed, she said to herself, be- 
cause he never could have made her what he 
would have wanted; and he would have felt the 


A siren’s son 


99 


disappointment more after a while, because Kath- 
erine was not fickle, and she did not need what 
some of us do — sympathy, companionship, love. 
She walked up and down the room restlessly. 
The swish of her gown made a slow soft sound 
upon the polished floor. Her eyes were bright. 
She began to wish that she were free, or that she 
was as she had been ten years ago. It was the 
first time in all her married life that such a 
thought had come to her. Heretofore she had 
taken what goods the gods provided, and been 
well enough content. She did not understand 
her feelings now, but she blamed Maurice for 
them, and for making her so dissatisfied with 
herself. If she had been different. If she had 
married differently. But what was the use of 
saying it? She put away the thoughts from her 
with an effort. She was glad when the servant 
announced dinner. She was not hungry, but she 
was going to the ' opera afterwards, and she 
thought she might lose her fancies there. 

She saw Katherine two days later. She and 
Paul were driving, and Natalie got into the Vic- 
toria, giving Paul an excuse to get out, which he 
did with alacrity. He had not lost one whit 
of his old worship for his mother, but he found 
driving through the park in such respectable 


ICO 


A siren’s son 


fashion an intolerable bore, only to be intensi- 
fied by the presence of Mrs. Fortescue. 

“Who do you think came to see me on 
Thursday.?” said Natalie, settling her skirts and 
looking at Katherine, whose face, rising above 
her heavy sables, was like a piece of fine por- 
celain. 

“How can I guess.? You know alTmanner of 
men. I presume, from your interest, that it was 
a man.” 

“Maurice Dulaney.” 

“Ah! Maurice. Well, is he just as he used 
to be, full of crotchety fads.?” 

“He is worse. I do not know what he did to 
me, but he made me feel very uncomfortable.” 

“Maurice was calculated to give one dyspepsia. 
He takes a morbid view of life, and he was al- 
ways exploring into things which did not concern 
him in the least. Now that he has taken hold 
of this wretched socialism, I tremble to think 
what he may develop into. On the whole, I am 
rather glad we are at odds.” 

But after Natalie had been deposited at her 
own door, and the carriage was taking Kather- 
ine swiftly home, she leaned her head against the 
cushion and closed her eyes a moment to shut 
out the present, that other memories might have 


A SIREN^S SON 


lOI 


play. She thought of how it had been, and of 
how his face had looked in the still white moon- 
light. She had not put him from her without 
an effort. God in heaven knew that. But she 
was strong, and in the might of that strength she 
would have no regret, no looking back upon a 
path whose door she had forever closed. 


CHAPTER X. 


It was growing late, on the night of the 
twenty-fifth, when Maurice Dulaney came into 
the crowded music hall. Katherine was sing- 
ing, and every seat was taken. He stood leaning 
back of a side row of chairs, near enough to see 
her face distinctly. It was the first time, since 
the night they had said good-bye. That had 
been five years, but seeing her face was like 
dreaming the same dream over again. 

She was singing a song that he had heard her 
sing once in Germany. The night, and the 
features of it, came back to him, vividly. He 
could close his eyes and be back among the 
memories of that night and their creations. It 
was when he had not known her so well, but he 
had loved her, he had been hers, body and soul. 
He had gone home through the winter starlight, 
with an old refrain ringing through his thoughts: 

“Und das hat mit ihren Singen 
Die Lorelei gethan.” 

He shook off the feelings which surged over 
102 


A siren’s son 


103 


and through him, and looked at her again. 
Her dress was of gold-colored satin, and her 
hair, in its yellow goldness, was like the silken 
threads of her dress. She was singing with the 
love she felt for it, before and above everything 
else. Her eyes rested unseeingly upon his. 
The slightness of her body swayed a little. 
The diamonds she wore caught and flashed back 
the many lights. Her voice rose as though it 
carried her soul with it. She was not a woman, 
she was not a soul, she was a voice. When the 
curtain was down Maurice, looking around, saw 
Natalie in a box at the right of the stage. She 
was alone, and he went over, because there was 
something about Mrs. Fortescue that had always 
attracted him. Perhaps it was that she was 
generally more in earnest than most women. 

“Oh, is it you?” said Natalie. Despite herself, 
she had thought of him a great deal since their 
last meeting, and she felt a little conscious for 
fear lest he might in some way have divined it. 
She drew back her heavy skirts a little. 

“Sit down. Have you just come? You are 
late.” 

“I could not get away sooner.” 

“Ah! you are working too hard. You are not 
looking well.” 


104 


A siren’s son 


She spoke with a frank directness. 

‘‘I am not working hard enough, for what I 
have to do,” 

She smiled. “I have not heard you yet, but 
I see your enthusiasm grows on you. We were 
talking about you the other day, and decided, I 
believe, that you were a second Felix Holt, ex- 
cept you wear a necktie.” 

“Did not he?” 

“No.” 

“I wonder what his objection could have 
been ?” He was looking away from her absently. 

“At all events,” said Natalie, blushing in spite 
of herself, “I think I believe in you, and perhaps 
if 1 understood it all better I would be quite a 
convert to your creeds.” 

“Thank you. It is pleasant to be believed in 
by one’s friends.” 

There was a pause. The violins sounded softly 
through the deeper notes of which they were a 
part. Maurice spoke: 

“Where is Paul?” 

“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders 
slightly. “He brought me, and then had some 
excuse ready. He always has one. I wonder, 
sometimes, Katherine does not see.” She stopped, 
checking herself abruptly, for she was very loyal 
to Katherine. 


A siren’s son 


105 


Maurice smiled a little bitterly. Natalie felt 
he understood her, though he did not say any- 
thing. Indeed, there was an indefinite sym- 
pathy about the man, which she had always 
recognized. She had spoken to Katherine of it, 
and the latter had said, “Yes, Maurice always 
understands.” 

It seemed a long time ago to Natalie, now, 
since they had all been such good friends to- 
gether. She had always thought Katherine would 
marry Maurice, but then it was not easy to know 
what Mrs. Kingston would do. They were 
both silent, and both were thinking of the same 
thing. It seemed so natural to him to be back 
among the stage lights, the music, the applause, 
and near Katherine. How many nights had 
they gone together ! Once she had nearly slipped, 
getting out of the carriage, and if she had not 
caught herself so quickly she would have been in 
his arms. He remembered how his heart beat, 
but she had laughed. It was all so natural; the 
people, the close hot smell, the violins throbbing, 
only it was all different, too, for he was not a part 
of it any more. 

The room had suddenly grown suffocating. 
He rose, holding out his hand. 

“You are not going.?” said Natalie. “Why, 


io6 


A siren’s son 


Katherine sings again, and then we are to have 
a petit soiiper together. Stay and join us. It 
will seem like being in Germany again.” 

“I cannot.” He shook his head. 

“I will pour out your coffee, if you will.” 

“You tempt me, but I must not yield to you. 
I would spoil it all. I am getting too old for 
such dissipations.” 

“Oh, that means — a late supper gives you in- 
digestion,” said Natalie, laughing. She wanted 
him to stay, and yet she did not, for he was so 
apt to make her dissatisfied with herself. 

As Maurice went out, a man entering jostled 
him. He looked back. It was Paul, and he 
had been drinking enough to be a little unsteady. 

Maurice hesitated, half turned as though to 
follow him, and then went on. He turned down 
into the quietness of a side street. The moon 
was full, and with the snow made everything very 
bright. The wind through the trees seemed 
carrying the echo of a refrain: 

‘‘Unddas hat mit ihren Singen 
Die Lorelei gethan.” 

It was more than a month later, that Mrs. 
Fortescue, coming one day to see Katherine, 
found her in bed with a quick pulse and a tic- 
kling cough. She was not allowed to talk, and 


A siren’s son 


107 


Natalie did not stay long. Katherine was always 
nervous when she had a cold, and began taking 
troches and egg flip at once. Natalie thought 
she looked badly, and knew she was not very 
strong. 

The next morning, while she was in the hall 
filling a large jar with flowers, the bell rang. It 
was too early for any visitors, so she gathered 
the roses up in one arm and opened the door 
herself. Paul greeted her. He looked tired, 
and his face was pale. 

“My mother is quite ill, Natalie. I do not 
know what to do. She had a dreadful night, 
and the doctor thinks her cold is pneumonia. 
Will you come.^” 

“Yes,” said Natalie. She put on her furs and 
followed Paul to the carriage. It was cold, 
with a gray sky, full of snow lights. They were 
very silent during the drive. Paul wrapped the 
rug closer about Natalie, but she kept the sashes 
down. He left her at Katherine’s door, and when 
she came out he had rung for wine and biscuit 
for her. He was standing looking out of the 
long window: 

“Well?” he said. 

“She must have a nurse,” said Natalie, in her 
quick, decided way. “The doctor tells me she 


io8 


A siren’s son 


is quite sick, but he does not fear for her, with 
care and good nursing. See here, Paul, I am 
going to send a nurse to you. She is a little 
Sister of Charity, or something of the kind, 
trained for hospital work. But she has not 
gone in yet, and will be the very person. She 
nursed me with fever in the summer.” 

“I leave everything to you,” said Paul. He 
was very miserable, and Natalie felt sorry for 
him, even though she did not like Paul. 

The carriage took her swiftly across Fifth 
Avenue, and on down into the busy part of the 
city. She had a meeting of King's Daughters 
that day, for she was a woman who took up in- 
terests in life on every side of it. If she had 
been questioned very closely, Natalie could not 
have told definitely what she believed, but she 
went to church, and took an active part in char- 
ities. Perhaps she might have been different, but 
Katherine had always laughed at her entirely. 
And then as for charity, she could not help 
thinking of Maurice Dulaney’s favorite prin- 
ciple, that the world wanted justice instead, and 
that the two were not synonymous, after the 
fashion of the world. 

“You women,” he had said to her, “like to 
dignify with the name of charity, climbing up 


A siren’s son 


109 

into cock-lofts and going down into cellars, 
preaching meekness of spirit to those who do 
not inherit the earth, when it is liberty they want 
from an enforced state which holds them slaves.” 

“Sometimes they seem to want mutton broth 
even worse,” Natalie had answered, flippantly. 
She had not read Progress and Poverty, but 
she had heard Maurice lecture, and once she had 
met him in a by-street and he had gone home 
with her. That had been a month ago, and 
she had not seen him since, for he had not made 
any more visits. In truth she was rather glad 
he did not come. She was a thoroughly loyal 
woman, and he was the only man she had ever 
seen who seemed to hold weapons against that 
loyalty. And Natalie — no matter what she be- 
lieved, prayed — “Lead us not into temptation.” 

It was through some hospital work that she 
had come into contact with the girl who after- 
v/ard nursed her through an attack of fever. 
She would never forget the skillful, soothing 
touches of the long white fingers, the quiet step, 
the low clear voice. She had the girl’s address 
in her pocket, and turning into a cross street she 
decided to go and deliver her message before 
going on to her meeting, for her watch showed 
that she was ahead of time. 


no 


A siren’s son 


As she leaned forward to give her directions 
to the driver she saw Maurice Dulaney, and in 
the same instant he saw her. He came up to 
the victoiia, putting out his hand. When he 
lifted his hat he showed a sprinkling of gray 
hairs like oxidized silver about his temples. His 
face had more force and vigor and he wore his 
mustache heavily. 

“I have not seen you in an age, Mrs. Fortes- 
cue. Have you been away.?” 

“No,” said Natalie; then she added, “Get in. 
I am sure you are going my way.” 

“Perhaps I could not do better,” said Maurice. 
He did not get in, but stood with his hand rest- 
ing on the door. 

“I am going to look for a nurse for Mrs. King- 
ston.” She looked at him closely, as she spoke, 
and was almost certain he started and turned 
a little pale, only it is hard to tell when a bronzed 
man does turn pale. 

“A nurse!” 

“Yes, Katherine is ill, or at least seems quite 
sick. She has managed to contract a wretched 
cold — Grippe — call it any name you will, I know 
what it means.” 

“What.?” 

He was white, now. 


A siren’s son 


III 


“Oh, a long attack, and a good nurse. That 
is where I am going now, to look for one. Are 
you going to get in.!*” 

But Maurice declined. He drew her rug closer 
about her and gave her orders to the coachman, 
but he did not send any message to Katherine. 

He stood looking after the carriage as it bowled 
swiftly out of sight. The air was very keen, but 
he did not seem to feel it. He had never known 
Katherine to be ill before. He could not think 
of her so. And then came rushing through his 
brain the awful possibility that for her, time’s 
sands might have run their course. 

In the absorbing passion of vigorous life, we 
do not often stop to think of death. It does not 
seem near us, until it comes so close that one is 
taken at the mill, and the other left. And then 
we shudder and grow pale, for we hate the cold- 
ness and the darkness of it, and we want the 
warmth and light and knowledge that belongs to 
life, and we cling to the very shadows of it, for 
we are of them. 

In the end, when we have had the years of our 
allotted time, when we know our striving and 
shining is ending here forever, when that for- 
ever comes so close upon us, and to-morrow is 
eternity — then we look on death and we do not 


II2 


A siren’s son 


tremble at any shadows. We know it is the 
greatest thing in life, we believe that it will be 
the end of many sorrows, and we are mostly 
glad to welcome it and hold it in our hearts. 

But Maurice was thinking of Katherine. 


CHAPTER XL 


It was the next day that Paul, coming in with 
a basket of white grapes for Katherine, was met 
at the door by a resolute young woman with a 
low, decided voice. 

“You cannot come in, sir. Mrs. Kingston is 
asleep.” 

He looked at her for a moment. The face 
was like a bit of sea shell, and her calm, serene 
eyes were like her voice. He felt, in looking 
at her, the consciousness of some previous ex- 
istence, in which he had seen, had known her. 

“She is better, but she must be very quiet,” 
the soft, slow voice continued. 

He stood looking at her still. He held his 
hat, and with that awkwardly in one hand, with 
the other he pushed back his hair. She wore a 
slate colored dress, high at the throat. He looked 
at her eyes again, and they were just the color 
of her dress. And then, suddenly, he seemed 
to see the gray walls of a convent, and the broad 
stretch of the sea kshing itself against the sand- 
113 


A siren’s son 


II4 

heaps, and a child’s tearful face with damp hair 
brushed against his lips. 

“You are Margaret Ferrol,” he said. 

“Yes, I am Margaret Ferrol.” 

He put out his hand. “Will you shake hands 
with me.? You do not remember, perhaps, the 
day at Light House Island. It was nearly six 
years ago.” 

“Yes, I remember.” 

Her face took on a slight color. It was so 
pale the faintest tinge showed itself. 

“You have not become as Sister Cecile.?” he 
said. He smiled, as the strong recollection of 
it all rushed over him. 

The color deepened a little. She put out her 
hand. “No — shall I take the fruit.? When 
Mrs. Kingston is awake you may come in.” 

He lingered, his hand still upon the basket. 

“You do not think she is very ill.?” 

“I think she needs good nursing.” 

“Do you think you can give her that.?” 

He spoke almost rudely, but the girl’s eyes 
showed nothing. 

“I think you may trust me.” 

There was a sound inside. She turned quickly. 
He put the basket in her hand, and then the 
door closed. He sat down by the hall window 


A siren’s son 


1^5 

and wondered if she would come out again, but 
she did not. He sat there a longtime. He could 
look down into the square back enclosures of 
his neighbor’s houses, and again get a side view 
of the busy thoroughfare, neither of which 
were very attractive. He felt a certain new 
strange feeling creeping over him, as though a 
strong salt breeze had blown upon him, giving 
him new strength, clearing away the tainted at- 
mosphere that had surrounded him. 

Below his window men and women passed, 
young and old, some tired and careworn, some 
well enough content, and some indifferent. He 
watched them idly, wondering if a soul could 
move through all that multitude of souls and yet 
be one so much apart, so clean, so white, a lit- 
tle bit of coral fresh from the sea, an ivory min- 
iature, a carved mother-of-pearl— his fancies 
shaped themselves into smoke wreaths. There 
was a woman’s face that came in the smoke, 
and her eyes were very dark and always laugh- 
ing, and her feet danced and twined together 
and carried her through every graceful motion, 
and the little silver bells upon her ankles rang 
with the music. She wore pearls and fine linen, 
purple and silk and scarlet, and when she smiled 
it was as though she said, ‘‘Come.” 


Il6 A siren’s son 

And the smoke curled upward. It used to 
curl in just such somber circles when Jean Le- 
main smoked on the porch and Paul stretched 
himself there with the puppies, and the dry, 
sultry air dampening his curls. Jean Lemain, 
whose body slept there in dissolution, whose 
spirit was — where 

And the smoke rose and vanished away. 

But there was another long line of smoke 
ghosts passing and fading before him, and some 
of them were pleasures, and some were follies, 
and some were sins. And sometimes there was 
a woman’s voice singing through them all. And 
some were sorrowful, and all were part of him. 

But they passed on away with the smoke, for 
they cried: 

“We are come from the desert of memory. 
We are going on into the region of regret.” 

He lighted another cigar. 

He did not see Margaret again for several 
days. Mrs. Kingston was very sick, and did not 
recover rapidly. She was not strongly consti- 
tuted, and was very nervous. Paul sat with her 
whenever he was allowed to come in, but spent 
most of his time at the hall window. He grew 
quite fond of the place, and brought his own 


A siren’s son 


II7 

easy chair to fit in the niche. Mrs. Fortescue 
came upon him ensconced there one afternoon, 
when she ran up -stairs with a bunch of American 
Beauties for Katherine. 

“Why, Paul, what are you doing.?” 

“I think I am becoming philosophic, after the 
order of Herr Teufelsdrdckh; or if less profound, 
the Attic Philosopher,” 

Natalie laughed. “How is Katherine.?” 

“Better. Do you know, Natalie, Maurice 
Dulaney has sent Nephetos and LaFrance every 
day, but he has never been here once.” 

The other flushed a little. 

“Maurice is a crank. Can I take these in 
now.?” 

As she spoke the door opened and Margaret 
came out. Her dark dress made her face look 
very white. Her hair waved a little over her 
forehead, and her eyes, under the straight brows, 
looked tired. She was in startling contrast to 
Natalie’s warmth and color. 

“Why, my dear, you are worn out,” cried Mrs. 
Fortescue, going to her and putting a slim tan 
hand on her shoulder; “no, do net shake your 
head, your eyes are as heavy as lead. And such 
a pale face. This will never do.” 

“I am very strong,” said Margaret, smiling a 


ii8 


A siren’s son 


little, “and I am always pale. I did not sleep 
at all last night, and that is why my eyes look 
tired.” 

She looked taller than Natalie, and so much 
slighter. Paul had risen, and was looking at 
her. 

“See here,” cried Mrs.Fortescue, impulsively, 
“I am going to sit with Katherine. I have the 
rest of the afternoon before me. And you must 
go out, Margaret, and have a little walk. In- 
deed, you do not know the good it will do you. 
Just a half hour. The air is so fresh and not 
too cold — go.” 

The girl hesitated. “I do not think I should,” 
she began. But the other laughingly interposed. 
“Hurry, before it grows too dark. I will be as 
strict a nurse as even yourself.” 

“Then I will go for half an hour.” 

“You will take me home, Paul,” said Natalie, 
with a little nod, as she closed the door. 

He rose with a sudden, hardly shaped thought, 
and hearing the front door close, followed Mar- 
garet out into the street. She was nearly a 
square ahead of him. She walked very quickly, 
and had wrapped a heavy cloak about her. The 
wind blew it a little at the sides. She went on 
up Fifth Avenue, and he wondered if she were 


A siren’s son 


II9 

going as far as the park. It was beginning to 
grow dusky, even now, for the days were very 
short; when she passed the Cathedral she paused 
a moment, for there was service going on, but she 
did not go in. Instead, she turned into a nar- 
row street and he followed across two more, and 
then suddenly lost her. While he stood won- 
dering if the earth had swallowed her up, he 
noticed there was a little chapel to the left of 
him, and the door was open. 

He did not look inside, but stood leaning 
against the lobby door. There was a box with 
.“Alms for the poor” on it, in white letters. He 
put a coin in it almost mechanically. It dropped 
with such a solitary thud he judged it must be 
the only one there. Outside the wind blew with 
a certain dampness, and yet it was too cold to 
rain. A sparrow hopped inside the door and 
looked at him, with its head comically on one 
side. It was after five, and a few people, mostly 
women with sad faces, passed out. One car- 
ried a little baby in her arms. Then Margaret 
came. She started visibly when she saw Paul. 
Her face, in the dull gray light, reminded him 
of a piece of statuary he had seen in Italy. It 
was the head of a saint, and was called perfect 
because the woman showed, as well as the saint. 


120 


A siren's son 


“I have been waiting for you,” he said; “it 
is growing late for you to be out.” 

“I am so used to that.” She drew her cloak 
a little closer and they stepped out into the 
street together. He felt a sudden sense of rest 
and happiness in walking by and with her. He 
wished that it was quite dark, that he might in- 
sist upon her taking his arm. 

“You have not told me how you come to be 
in New York, how you came to leave the con- 
vent. I thought you as much a fixture as those 
pretty little pink and white flowers you said you 
made.” 

“Did you? No — I came because I felt there 
was too much in self, too much in life. I felt 
so narrowed, so suffocated — you don’t under- 
stand the feeling.” She broke off abruptly. 

“Yes, I do,” said Paul. 

“But that was before my mother died,” she 
went on; “I did not feel the need of any out- 
side work while she lived. I felt there was no 
other life, I was so happy.” 

They were passing a theater, and a man loung- 
ing outside knew Paul, and stared at him. Paul 
did not see him. 

“So I came back here,” continued the girl. 
“I was always a good nurse, and I had good 


A siren’s son 


I2I 


training. Nursing Mrs. Fortescue was the first 
trial I had, but since then I have had others. 
One, a little child, with diphtheria, and another, 
a little one who died. You cannot think how 
sorry I was. I prayed God for it. I prayed as 
often as I dared.” 

As she spoke she lifted her eyes to his, and 
suddenly remembered how, long ago, he had 
laughed and sneered at her when she spoke of 
God. Now he did neither. 

“It died,” she went on, sorrowfully. “It was 
such a tiny little thing. I like to think of it as 
one of those who in heaven do always behold 
the face of our Father.” 

“But the work — does it not wear you out.?” 

“I am very well. I am very strong. Next 
year I am to go into a hospital. That will be 
more confining. I will not be able to hear any 
music.” 

“Music.?” 

“Yes, I love it very much, I used to go and 
hear Thomas whenever I could. I love to go 
Sunday nights, and get away up-stairs and lis- 
ten I can fancy such fancies . I feel as 

though the violins had souls, and greater souls 
than ours.” 

“Will you come with me, sometime.?” His 


122 


A siren’s son 


voice sounded low, and full of appeal. “I would 
like to hear, so much, as you hear.” • 

“I do not think it will be possible,” she said, 
in an odd, changed voice. A moment later she 
stumbled a little on the curbing, and Paul said, 
in quite as constrained a voice, 

“You had better take my arm.” 

She took it silently. When they reached home 
it was six o’clock. He had purposely taken her 
a little out of the way. Katherine was asleep, 
and Natalie was reading a magazine. She put 
it down with an air of relief. 

“Are you freshened up.^ Why, yes, your cheeks 
are quite rosy. I’m so glad.^ And now, Paul, 
take me home to dinner; and if it is cold I vow 
you shall take me to Delmonico’s.” 

Paul pleaded his bachelor loneliness and im- 
plored Natalie to stay, but she was quite ob- 
durate. As they drove swiftly through the 
brightly lighted streets,she put her hand on his. 

“Paul!” 

“Natalie.?” 

“Don’t try to flirt with that girl. Stick to your 
Carmencitas. This girl is like a piece of edel- 
weis.” 

“I know it.” 

“I know you are fond of flirting,” she went on, 
“but I forbid this.” 


123 


A siren’s son 

“I do not see how it would be possible to flirt 
with Miss Ferrol,” said Paul coldly. He had 
never liked Natalie very much, and he thought 
her particularly disagreeable now. 

“You must understand, Paul, that what I say 
is in perfect kindness and sincerity,” she con- 
tinued, as the carriage stopped before her door; 
“I would not have you think me interfering.” 

He refused to go in and have a cup of tea or 
glass of wine, and was glad when he reached 
home. There was a dim light burning in his 
mother’s room and another tray of flowers from 
Maurice Dulaney. 

He was awakened in the night by a servant. 
Margaret had sent to tell him his mother was 
worse, and that he must go for a doctor. Kath- 
erine’s attack developed into bronchitis, and 
Paul did not see her for several days. 


CHAPTER XII. 


When he did see her she was very pale, with all 
the warmness of life sapped out of her face. Her 
eyes seemed grown larger and darker, and her 
hair, in its soft curls, was like little feathers. Paul 
knelt down, letting his cheek touch hers. 

“You are better, dear little one.?” 

She smiled at him. “Have you been lonely 
without me.? Ah, Paul, have you ever suffered.? 
I have been like those who, when it was day, 
cried — ‘Would God it were night!’ And when 
night came — ‘Would God it were day!’” 

“Poor little mother.” He rubbed his cheek up 
and down against hers with a caressing sym- 
pathy; “but that is over, now.” 

She raised herself a little, leaning heavily 
against the pillows which were behind her. “Is 
it.? I do not know. Paul, do you know what 
it is to be haunted.? Yes, always haunted by one 
terrible idea, to see nothing else, to have nothing 
else before you, a thought which crowds out 
every other thought. You are my child, but you 
124 


A siren’s son 


125 


are not like me, you are like your father — pouf! 
you are like the rest.” 

“Mother, what do you mean.?” 

“Nothing — Ah, Paul.” she threw her arm 
caressingly about his neck. “Paul, you do not 
ask me what this great dread is. Do you think 
I feared dying? I do not like the thought, truly; 
it is not pleasant; but it is belter, infinitely bet- 
ter than my fear.” 

“I know you are brave,” he said. “I know 
there is no one like you. What is there for you 
to fear?” 

She leaned her head nearer until her lips were 
close against his ear. Her voice was a whisper. 

“Have you heard them say — has the doctor — 
Paul, look at me straight. Long ago, you had 
honest eyes. Is there any danger for — for this?” 
She clasped her fingers about her throat. Is 
there any chance of my voice going from me? 
My — voice?” She hesitated, stopped, looking 
at him with eyes full of an agony of appeal. 

'‘'Cherie — indeed, I have not heard them say 
so,” He spoke earnestly. 

She rested her slim hand upon his forehead, 
touching lightly the soft fineness of the hair 
above, her eyes upon his own. 

“Paul, I have not been what some call 


126 


A siren’s son 


good, but I have been so happy. What could I 
want, these last years.? I have had you — you. 
Before, I was always hungering for you. Wom- 
en without children do not know what it is to 
have a child, and not to see its face. I brought 
you into the world with pain and suffering. You 
were a part of me, yet I gave you up. I did 
not know then how hard it would be. We can- 
not always know how hard a thing is until it is 
over. We do not realize what it means, when 
we do it. I cried, and I do not often cry, when 
Maurice came back to me without you. But 
still I felt all the while that you would come. 
I have always believed in Fate, and so believed 
in myself, and 1 have been happy. Some wom- 
en might not have been, but with my voice, 
and with you, I was satisfied. I have lain here 
thinking of it all. In the early, stealthy dawn, 
for that is the hardest to bear, I have looked back 
upon it all. Can it be that now — now — there 
is a God who can destroy all that made life beau- 
tiful? Some women might have found it hard to 
lay aside a thing which I gave up, because it 
stood between me and my ambition — my heart’s 
love. But I — I never looked at that. Feelings 
are not guides.” 

She sank back exhausted. He put his arms 


A siren’s son 


127 


about her until she was resting in them. The lace 
of her night-dress brushed his face, the perfume 
of her hair reached him. 

“You must not talk so much, it will make you 
hoarse. Your hands are hot. You know you 
must be very careful. The doctor said so. And 
then, after a little, it will be just as it was be- 
fore, and we — we will be happy together.” 

But even as he spoke he felt the sudden pul- 
sing of his heart, because he was thinking of 
Margaret Ferrol, and because there had come 
suddenly a new force into his life, which made 
the past years of it, as they showed themselves, 
and him, so stained and worthless that he wished 
a hand might wipe them out. And yet, and yet 
— the woman who had led him to them, the 
woman who through them all had been as the 
burden of a song — she — she — was his mother. 
She had suffered for him. Could he forget that ? 
No matter how many voices cried to his soul, “It 
cannot be as it was before. The past is forever 
gone — its very ashes are not.” 

It was Margaret who interrupted them. She 
came in with a cluster of white roses. Paul put 
Katherine down very gently, and stood up. He 
looked at Margaret, but she did not seem to see 
him. She came up to the bed, and held the 
flowers toward Katherine. 


128 


A SIREN S SON 


“They came for you this afternoon. And they 
are not heavily scented, so I thought you would 
like them. See what long white buds they are; 
and the leaves are such a smooth green.” 

She held a bud between her fingers, and laid 
the card which had come with them by Kather- 
ine. It was Maurice Dulaney’s, as Katherine 
felt that it was, before she had looked at it. 
She scarcely noticed the flowers. Paul watched 
Margaret put them in water. She touched 
them lovingly. He felt a sudden impulse to 
touch one of the buds because she had held it 
for a moment against her lips. He watched 
her gently settle Katherine’s pillows, and make 
her more comfortable. He was standing all the 
while. He could not bring himself to sit down 
while she stood. 

When she had gone out, and the door had 
closed after her, Paul picked up the card and 
looked at it. His mind went back to that first 
meeting of his. He could see vividly the white 
stretch of the sand road, the heavy trees with 
their gray fringe, yea, the very outlines of the 
old house, and Jean Lemain upon the porch. 
He saw himself as he was then. 

He looked at Katherine. Her eyes were 
closed, He wanted to follow Margaret, and 


A siren’s son 


129 


after a little, when his mother did not speak nor 
look at him, he laid his lips very lightly against 
her’s, and went out, closing the door softly. 
He had found little chance to speak to Margaret. 
Somehow, words did not come readily to his 
lips when in her presence. He, who had been 
the life, the center of all questionable pleasantry 
at their little Paris suppers, when he was stim 
ulated by his mother’s guests — women tempting 
him with their ophidian glances, with the naked 
bareness of their arms and bosoms. They had 
flattered him, and yielded to him. But now, 
before this girl with her innocent lips and guilt- 
less eyes, he was silent. He hesitated even so 
much as to come near her. His life with Kath- 
erine had taken him into many phases. He had 
caught up with time, and mastered it. Now it 
was not always pleasant to look back upon. 
Now the future seemed suddenly to hold a ne.v 
meaning, a new and real import. 

Margaret was outside the door. She had not 
liked to leave Katherine, but she had fancied 
Paul would rather have his mother alone. There- 
fore she was surprised when he followed her so 
soon. 

“I think she is going to sleep,” he said, rather 
awkwardly. There was a little table between 


130 


A siren’s son 


them, and he rested his arm on it. He shook 
the glasses placed there, and Margaret put out 
her hand to steady them. He thought what long 
white fingers she had, and he longed to touch 
them with his own. 

“I will go in to her,” she said. 

“Are you not too much confined.^ Does she 
need you all the time.?” He spoke eagerly. 

“I think I had better be with her; she is ner- 
vous sometimes when she cannot sleep. Then I 
stroke her hair. She has such soft hair, has 
she not.? She is so beautiful — your mother.” 

She spoke with simple directness; then passed 
him and went in. He stood silent, leaning 
against the door through which she had disap- 
peared. Natalie found him there when she came 
as usual to ask about Katherine. She looked 
at him sharply. 

“Why, Paul, what are you doing.?” 

“Nothing. Will you wait a moment, Natalie? 
I think my mother is asleep.” 

“Do not disturb her,” said Mrs. Fortescue. 

She sat down in Paul’s window seat, and re- 
fused his invitation to go into the parlor. She 
was looking not quite like herself, with an ab- 
stracted expression in her eyes, but she had the 
warmth of color which was her chief beauty, and 


A siren’s son 


I3I 

her heavy furs were becoming. She looked at 
Paul steadily. She was thinking of her first visit 
to Katherine after her return. Paul had repelled 
all her memory of him, then, and had put in its 
place an instinctive and lowering contempt. 

“Well,” she said, after a pause, “have you been 
to Niblo’s lately.? And what of the ankles.? Are 
they all your fancy painted them.?” 

He flushed hotly. “No.” 

“What, so fickle.? Are you tired, already .? Fie, 
inconstant swain.” 

She pointed her finger at him. Her mocking 
voice set his blood on fire. 

“Natalie,” he cried, coming to her, and taking 
both her hands forced her to look at him. “Tell 
me — you were never one to mind hurting one’s 
feelings — you never cared how rough shod you 
walked — tell me then, am I fit for nothing bet- 
ter than that. Is all the best of me gone.? Is 
that all I can expect from life.?” 

He let her hands fall. She put up one of 
them, and touched his arm. He could not be- 
lieve it was Natalie who spoke, her voice 
sounded with such altered tones. 

“God forbid, Paul, that I should be judge 
of you, or any other. What is my life — what does 
it amount to.? Nothing. But I believe, never- 


132 


A SIREN'S SON 


theless, that we are fitted for the best, as well 
as the worst of life, and we ourselves choose 
which. But I know, too, there is always that 
in us which is stronger than our own will.” 

He did not answer, and after awhile she spoke 
again, with a change of tone. “Is Miss Ferrol a 
good nurse.?” 

“There could not be a better.” His voice took 
on an excessive eagerness that she could not but 
perceive. “You were so good to think of her. 
We — my mother— could not do without her.” 

Natalie smiled. 

To herself she thought: “Does God use us to 
help each other.?” And then she thought sud- 
denly of Maurice Dulaney. .She had not seen 
him, but he came into her mind with many of 
her thoughts, and though she did not admit it 
she knew he was a man who could influence her, 
albeit she had always stood so alone in her de- 
cisions. 

She spoke absently, for she was not thinking 
of her words: “She nursed me very well. That 
was while you were in Europe.” 

“Yes.” 

They were both silent a moment. Perhaps in 
that little space they both gained an understand- 
ing of each other better. Natalie felt as though 


A SlREN^S SON 


133 


she had wronged Paul. But she could not help 
remembering how it had been, and on what a 
level he had put himself, and she did not like 
to remember all she knew of him. And then 
again, she admired Margaret Ferrol, but she 
loved Katherine. 

She went in presently to see Mrs. Kingston, 
and Paul sat still in his accustomed place look- 
ing out at the lead-colored clouds. He wished 
Margaret would come, but she did not. Mrs. 
Fortescuesat some time with Katherine. She 
was sympathetic, without showing her sym- 
pathy, only one knew it was there, and so it 
strengthened, instead of doing harm. 

Katherine had a great deal to say to her, of 
her great and overwhelming fear, and they 
talked a little of Paul. And Natalie saw the 
white roses Maurice had sent, but they did not 
mention his name. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


Paul came upon Margaret one evening, about 
twilight or earlier. She was going down-stairs 
for something and had paused a moment and was 
standing at his window looking out, with her 
hand resting upon his chair. He noticed the lit- 
tle waving lights in her up-growing hair, noticed 
the little stray tendrils, which looked very dark 
against the whiteness of her throat. 

“I am watching that red line of light over 
there,” she said, turning to him. “I get so 
homesick for the grand sunsets we used to have 
— now a little patch of red or a streak of purple 
is the most I get.” 

“You miss other things, too,” he said, look- 
ing at her intently. “Do you know you are 
looking very badly.?” 

“I am very strong.” It was the answer she 
gave always. Then she moved aside. “I am 
going after some potash the servant has not 
brought up- stairs.” 

“They are very careless,” said Paul; “let 
134 


A SIREN S SON 


135 


me get it for you.” He spoke eagerly. She 
smiled, shook her head and disappeared. He 
sat down and looked at the light she had watched, 
but he was thinking of her. He thought of noth- 
ing else, now. He knew that for every better, 
truer, nobler impulse come to him, he had her 
to thank. He knew that his soul grew and ex- 
panded under the influence of this new sensation 
which made existence a feeling not yet shapen 
into form. He had walked with Margaret again, 
one evening when she went to have a prescrip- 
tion filled. They had talked about the day at 
Light House Island. 

“I went over there again, and was very cross 
at not seeing you,” Paul had said. She had 
blushed a little as she answered: “They were 
very strict at the convent.” She did not say she 
had thought of him, over her tedious embroid- 
ery. When she came up with the potash he 
stopped her. 

“I wish you would take better care of yourself,” 
he said to her gravely; “you are so pale.” But 
she only smiled, and went on into Katherine’s 
room, and though he sat for a long time after 
the stars and the white-faced moon had come 
out, he did not see her again. 

When Mrs. Kingston was able to sit up, the 


136 


A siren’s son 


doctor said Miss Ferrol’s services might be dis- 
pensed with, but Katherine begged her to stay 
out the week at least. It was pleasant to have 
some one to read aloud, and be always ready, 
and Margaret was very useful. 

Katherine was very miserable. Her doom 
was fully sealed now, even though she took her 
troches and sprayed her throat regularly. For 
a long time after she knew she would not sing 
any more, she lay with her face turned to the 
wall and paid no attention to anything. She felt 
that the end of life had come — certainly the end 
of her life, and she cared for no other. She even 
wished, as she gasped in the night with bron- 
chitis, that there was a chance of one of those 
awful suffocating spasms being the last, and so 
— fiunc dimittus, Margaret was very gentle, 
very pitiful. She felt how the other suffered, 
and she knew a little of what suffering meant. 
Katherine did suffer. At night she would have 
passionate bursts of weeping, like a woman 
mourning for a dead child. Once Margaret, 
who, worn out, had dropped to sleep, woke to 
find her sitting up, with her head against the win- 
dow casement, sobbing in the cold moonlight. 

“You will take cold, ’’said the younger woman, 
gently. And then with pitying impulse, she put 
her arms around her. 


A siren’s son 


137 


“Do not cry so. It is God who sends trouble. 
He will not send us more than we can bear, and 
He will give us something in place of what He 
takes from us.” 

The other pushed her almost roughly away. 
“I want nothing in place of what I have lost. I 
had sooner, far sooner, lose my soul.” 

When she began to sit up, and even walk 
about the rooms, Natalie spent a great deal of 
time with her. She looked older, and was so 
much thinner that her dresses were discarded 
for wrappers. They were very soft, pretty lit- 
tle wrappers, and with her hair loosened, she 
did not look so thin. It was getting on towards 
six o’clock, and she and Mrs. Fortescue were 
drinking tea together, when the latter said sud- 
denly, as she reached for another lump of sugar, 

“What do you think of Paul’s fancy .J*” 

“What do you mean.?” 

Katherine sat upright, honestly puzzled. 

“Is it possible you do not see.? Pouf! It is 
a wise parent that knows its own child. Do you 
not see that Paul is in love with this pretty little 
saint who has been nursing you.?” 

“You are joking, Natalie. Paul in love with 
a woman like that.?” 

Her eyes flashed as she spoke. 


138 


A siren’s son 


“I assure you I am quite in earnest. There 
is nothing so remarkable. I dare say she is as 
pretty as the ballet dancer.” 

“I will not believe it,” went on Katherine, al- 
most angrily ;“the thing is absurd — preposterous. 
No doubt she is a bold, brazen thing, making 
eyes at Paul and trying her best to ensnare him. 
I wonder you should have brought such a woman 
to the house, Natalie.” 

“Softly, my dear. Don’t blame me. The 
girl is all right, as good as you could desire. 
Paul might go further and fare worse.” 

“Her father was a fisherman, I believe.” 

“Not quite that. He made boats. They say 
our Lord was a carpenter.” 

“Natalie, I beg of you! If there is one thing 
I seriously object to, it is the way people have 
of bringing that statement to meet all social dis- 
crepancies. I never saw that it helped the pres- 
ent order of equality in the least.” 

“Well,” said Natalie, “I give it up. I do 
think Paul is in love At first I thought he was 
flirting, but I do not think so any longer.” 

She rose to go, fastening her gloves. Kath- 
erine’s troubled face reproached her. 

“Forgive me, for worrying you. Perhaps I am 

wrong.” 


A siren’s son 


139 


As she opened the front door she met the doc- 
tor coming in, and they stopped to chat a little 
about Katherine. The doctor had a new opin- 
ion to advance. He thought if Mrs. Kingston 
made her home in a warm climate, say the south 
of France, there was a chance of getting back 
her voice. He was going up-stairs to tell her, 
and he thought it would be the wisest thing for 
her to do. 

Natalie was very glad. She was sincerely fond 
of Katherine. As she stepped out into the street 
she was almost sure she saw Paul coming from 
the opposite direction, but she did not stop to 
wait for him. It was Paul. He had written 
Margaret a note, begging her to meet him in the 
park. He had been there all the afternoon, but 
she had not come. 

When he opened his mother’s door, after 
knocking softly and meeting no response, he 
found her pacing up and down the floor in her 
long mauve wrapper, her hands clasped together 
and her eyes brighter than the fever had made 
them. She came to him quickly, putting her 
little ringless hands upon his shoulders. 

“Paul, can a man be born again.? Can the 
dead come to life.? Paul, there is a chance for 
me. Listen, a chance for me. Do you know, 


140 


A siren’s son 


I feel as Dives in hell felt when he thought there 
was a chance that God would grant his prayer.” 

Her hands burned upon his shoulders. Her 
flushed face made him wonder if the fever was 
not upon her. 

“The doctor has just been here. He says if I 
go away soon — soon — to the south of France — a 
little place there he is going to write to forme — 
if I go and follow all his directions carefully 
and thoroughly my voice may yet come back. At 
least, it is worth the trying.” 

“To the south of France.?” 

“Yes. Ah, cheriey I know it will be dull for 
you, but you will not mind, with me — not with 
me. We have always been happy anywhere, 
together. We will be happy now.” 

He was quite silent. Go away — away.? How 
could he do it, and leave behind him the one 
thing which pointed to any hope, or light, or 
happiness.? Go away.? 

“You shall not be very dull,” she went on; 
“you shall go to Paris whenever you will, and 
I will have Sir Henry visit us, and that pretty 
little actress we met in Rome. You shall not 
be dull.” 

He shuddered — why.? A month, two months 
ago he would have welcomed it. He had liked the 


A siren’s son 


I4I 

Parisian mode of living well enough, liked the 
pretty, fast women he had met, liked too the 
southern life with its petty loves and hates and 
quick, hot blood. Now — 

Suddenly he spoke. His voice sounded 
hoarse, and his eyes were full of agony. 

“Mother, I cannot. I love Margaret Ferrol. 
I want to make her my wife.” 

There was silence for a moment. It seemed 
to Paul an hour, and in it he felt Katherine’s 
hands drop from his shoulders and he noticed 
the color go ebbing out of her face. 

“Bah!” she said, with a little contemptuous 
thrusting forward of her red lips, so that the 
word formed a bubble upon them and burst. 
“You are trying to play a joke upon me, Paul, 
and a very poor one. How soon do you think 
we can start.?” 

“But I am in earnest,” he cried. And his face 
showed the mortal strife, such as the agony of 
Gethsemane. He laid his hand upon hers and in 
its iciness she shivered. 

“I am far enough from joking. I am in ear- 
nest.” 

And she knew it, as she looked into his face, 
and heard his voice. Her own showed noth- 
ing when she spoke. 


142 


A siren’s son 


“I am disappointed. I know, however, it is 
merely a fancy, a new face. When we are away 
together we will not even mention her.” 

“But you do not understand. I love her, I 
love her. How can I go away, unless — ” his 
face suddenly illuming — “she went too.?” 

“I think you are mad— fit for Bedlam. Do 
you think I would ever give my consent to such 
a thing — a woman like that.? Oh, Paul, Paul!” 

She broke down, and was crying in his arms. 
He kissed away the tears tenderly enough. She 
knew her power over him, and used it well. 

After he left her she thought, “If I can get him 
away from her, I can save him.” For there are 
those of us who for Life, read Death, and vice 
versa. 

Paul rose very early. It was hardly light in 
the clear, cold winter morning. He dressed Hur- 
riedly, and put on a long overcoat. The air was 
frosty as he took his way along the almost de- 
serted streets. The few people who were abroad 
looked at him curiously. A policeman stared, 
wondering if he were just going home. He 
turned into the same little cross street, for he 
could hear the chapel bell ringing for early mass 
then. He stopped a moment, looking back, and 
saw Margaret coming through the park. She 


A siren’s son 


H3 


was walking rapidly, and her peasant cloak 
made her look taller. Her hands were thrast 
into a little gray muff, and her face looked very 
small under her wide brimmed hat. She did 
not see Paul, and again he did not follow her 
inside, though it was cold enough walking up 
and down the hard frozen pavement. But the 
service was short, and he joined her just as she 
stopped to put a coin in the alms box. Her face 
grew suddenly changed from its far away ex- 
pression. Her spirit flashed back, settling with 
softening touches within her eyes, upon her 
quivering lips. 

“Margaret,” said Paul, resting his hand for an 
instant upon her arm; “you would not answer 
my note — will you let m^ see you for a little 
now.^” 

She made no reply. They walked on silently. 
At the park, they met a little girl carrying snow- 
drops, and offering them for sale. Paul bought 
two clusters, and leaning down fastened them 
against Margaret’s dark cloak. 

The early February lights broke and blended 
across the sky, the hoar frosts made the ground 
as though of spun diamonds, the lakes were 
frozen, and the trees were wreathed with icicles. 

There was scarcely a soul in view, only here 


144 


A siren’s son 


and there a laborer or a clerk going down early. 

“How beautiful that light is!” said Margaret. 
She was looking up at the crimsoning sky. The 
day was resting as gently upon the earth as in a 
lover’s arms. 

“It is very beautiful,” said Paul. He was not 
looking at the light. “Margaret,” he said, again, 
and this time he did not look at her — “Margaret, 
do you think one can love enough to make sac- 
rifices.?” 

“I think most often true love is a sacrifice.” 
Neither did she look at him. Inside her muff 
her fingers clasped each other. 

“Do you think it would be very selfish to ask 
for a love you know would be a sacrifice.?” 

She hesitated, looked at him, and then turned 
her head away. 

“I do not know. I know so little about it all.” 

He stopped suddenly, and took hold of her 
wrists just where the fur of her muff met them. 

“Margaret, could you ever be willing to be my 
wife.?” he asked. 

Her face flushed, and then grew pale again. 
She drew her hands away hastily, and walked 
on. 

“I know I am not a good man,” he went on. 
“Not the kind of man, if such an one lives, to 
love you. But — I would try — ” 


A siren’s son 


H5 

He felt it, as he spoke; felt a new and great 
desire to be something better, to rise to be above 
what he had been. 

“Oh, don’t say that,” cried the girl. “It is 
not that, only, only — we are so different — I am 
so different. I am not the kind of person for 
you to care for.” 

“But I am the best judge of that,” said Paul. 
“I know you are far, far beyond me. But — love 
is a sacrifice.” 

They had turned out of the park into the 
street which led to her rooms. 

“You will not refuse to see me this evening, 
will you.^ Or, better still, let me take you to 
hear some music. You said you cared for it.” 

“Oh, I can not think it is right,” cried the 
girl. Her face was full of trouble. “Hcan not; 
it can not be right.” 

She broke away from his outstretched hand 
and ran up the steps, but when she opened the 
door with her latch key he followed her into the 
hall. It was quite empty, with a smell of escap- 
ing gas, but he put his arm around her and kissed 
her. 

“It is right,” he whispered, “if you love me.” 

When, after a while, she had put him from 
her very gently, and he had gone out into the 


146 


A siren’s son 


chilly streets, she threw herself on her knees be- 
fore the crucifix at the head of the bed. 

“Dear Christ,” she prayed — and there were two 
heavy tears standing upon her lashes — “Dear 
Christ, is it wrong to be so happy — is it wrong 
to love so much — to love, and to be so loved?” 

The tears fell down upon the snowdrops, but 
the Christ answered her not at all. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


It was hard for Margaret not to feel doubts and 
forebodings, yet she knew with what intensity 
she was capable of loving, and the hitherto 
unsuspected power gave her new strength, new 
force and new life. Heretofore she had not 
known what joy was, what happiness meant. 
She had only looked forward to her life here, 
among the poor and suffering. That had been 
sweet enough, for she had felt close akin to the 
dear Christ. When she thought of that, she 
could not help feeling that the Lord was a jeal- 
ous God and was she not in danger of loving 
what was human more than what was divine.? 

She tried to put it away, and to reason that 
she was the stronger, the more able, because of 
this love. And because she had not known any 
other, because she had lived without even the 
thought of such a love, it burned into her the 
more fiercely. It was as though she carried with 
her a concealed and precious treasure which she 
feared always to part with. She began to be a 
147 


148 


A siren’s son 


little afraid of herself, for fear lest her own fears 
would be her undoing. 

Now that Mrs. Kingston did not need 
her any longer she was without any reg- 
ular employment. Yet there was always 
good for her to do among the many who 
needed help, and she was not slow to respond 
to any call from them. A child, living in a row 
of dirty tenements, had been ill with pneu- 
monia, and she had cared for it, and the labor 
of it had left her less strong than usual. The 
filth and uncleanliness told upon her the more, 
perhaps, from the contrast with the beauty of 
the surroundings she had just left. And then 
the ever constant thought kept her eyes wide 
open through the long nights, her mind rest- 
lessly looking into her changed and altered life, 
whose beauty terrified her. Yet in this sudden 
glorifying of it, she could not think how she had 
ever lived without what now seemed the center 
of her being. She did not dare think how it 
would be with her if this new light were sud- 
denly to go out. But then could God want 
that.? Would He be so cruel as to let two souls 
be so fitted, and yet let them be apart.? Does 
a skillful workman do that? And then she shud- 
dered, for she knew it was audacity to think of 


A SIREN^S SON 


149 


God in that way. She did not understand her- 
self now, and her soul seemed getting away from 
her, and from her control. 

But she belonged to Paul. 

She had belonged to him from that first kiss, 
which had burned into her lips. The strength 
of his love held her to him. She asked herself, 
was there any stronger.? And yet she felt that 
the very weakness of her own passion was her 
strength and that for whatsoever might come it 
would be sufficient. 

Paul reproached her for growing so thin, for 
she was slighter than ever. The night vigils, 
the day’s work, the constant wearing of many 
thoughts, all told upon the fragility of her na- 
ture. She was going home late one afternoon, 
walking with a drag at her steps, for she was 
very tired. Her eyes, in their clear gray blue, 
were full of thought. Their lids were heavy, 
and there were somber lines under them. It 
was not very cold, and there was no snow fall- 
ing, though it lay in blackened heaps along the 
gutters and where it had been shoveled off from 
the pavements. The moon was already begin- 
ning to show herself very palely, and Margaret 
quickened her steps, for she had promised Paul 
not to be out late. He would be so glad,he had 


A siren’s son 


150 

said to himself, when once — as his wife — she 
should no longer do anything of the sort. He 
was never tired of planning what it would be. 

That future which she, Margaret, almost 
trembled to look upon, he seized with boldness 
as his own. He believed in nothing that might 
thrust between them. The desire of his soul 
made his belief. 

Margaret had just turned a corner which 
brought her into more brightly lighted squares, 
when, as she passed under an electric light, she 
came face to face with Paul. Their eyes were 
on a level, and into his there shot a joyful rec- 
ognition. 

“Margaret !” 

“Am I in disgrace with you, for being out so 
late.?” she said, with a little shy smile. 

She leaned toward him, and the motion of her 
body was like a stemmed flower which the wind 
sways. He offered her his arm, and she put 
her hand through with that delicious sense of 
contact and safety she had so lately grown to 
feel. 

“You are never in disgrace with me. But you 
are out too late. And suppose anything should 
happen to you — my darling.” 

She laughed, but her eyes, resting on his, were 
full of softness. 


A siren’s son 


I5I 

“Nothing ever has, nothing will. Do I not 
bear a charmed life.^ Oh, Paul, I think I doy 
now.” 

“When we are married,” said the man, his 
voice lingering on the words which meant so 
much to him, and which he loved to hold and 
dwell upon, “when we are married, you shall 
never go anywhere alone, again.” 

She did not reply. She could not, as yet, 
fancy how it would be when she had the right, as 
his wife, to look to him for protection, for the 
most that he could give. As yet, the thought 
which had become as daily food to him she put 
from her, shrinking back a little from the im- 
mensity it portrayed. 

They walked along together, feeling alone 
and of themselves among the many passers and 
the hurrying footsteps. 

“Now that good fortune has thrown us to- 
gether,” said Paul, after a while, “let us make 
the most of it, I know a quiet little place where 
we can have some dinner — tea — what you like, 
and then I will take you to hear some music. 
It will not be very good — I would have sent you 
word if it had been anything special — but we 
can leave if we are tired, and we can be to- 
gether. Margaret! Margaret! how have I gotten 


152 


A siren’s son 


along without you? Do you know how often I 
look back to the day I saw you first— such a lit- 
tle white thing! and your hair, how wet it was! 
And when it brushed my face I felt the same 
thrilling sweetness I do now when I can touch it. 
Only then I did not understand.” 

She smiled at his words. “And I — I thought 
your hair so beautiful. I always liked yellow 
hair. I had a little image of the Christ, and I 
fancied it was like you.” 

“Far enough away from me, Margaret. Oh, 
Sweetheart,” he went on, with a rising inflection 
of voice, “do you know, can you realize, in all 
the white pureness of your clean heart, what a 
stained and tarnished gift at best it is I have to 
offer you? Sometimes I cannot bear to think 
of it, nor how it has been with me since those 
days, since that one. And you, you are so far 
above even the knowledge of much that has 
made my life.” 

“Oh ! hush !” she said; and there was the sound 
of pain in her voice. “Oh, hush! you think 
me so much better than I am, and I am so weak. 
Did God require me to give you up, what could 
I do? Paul, there are such gloomy thoughts that 
come to me at times, and I am afraid for my own 
happiness.” 


A siren’s son 


153 


“Nothing shall ever separate us/* said Paul, 
and then he added, smiling, “unless you throw 
me over, Margaret.” 

They had reached the door of the little res- 
taurant they had chosen. Margaret demurred 
a little, but afterwards she could not but yield 
to him. And as for Paul, he forgot there was 
anything in life save the present. Sitting there 
with Margaret’s face opposite him, and making 
her pour out his coffee, and she so gentle, so 
almost timid in all her little ways, so unlike any 
woman he had ever seen, he forgot, in the pleas- 
ure of watching her, any other somber thoughts, 
and painted glowingly all that they would do in 
that sweet, fair future which was before them. 
He told her of all the joys and beauties of it, 
until bright spots came into her cheeks. But 
she had not taken any wine. 

Afterwards they went to hear the music Paul 
had promised her. They were late, and they 
took a seat behind a twisted pillar, in an ob- 
scure corner. They were very quiet, for the 
strain of the music which filled the house seemed 
to soothe and satisfy far more than any words. 
It carried in its own completeness all that they 
might wish to say. Paul kept his eyes on her 
face, her grave, pure face, with the pretty up- 


154 


A SIREN^S SON 


turning lips, the fine, sweet nostrils, the serene 
eyes. As it chanced, Maurice Dulaney came 
in before it was over, and he saw Paul. He 
started a little, because he was more than sur- 
prised, and he looked from one to the other curi- 
ously. Once he made a motion as if to go to 
them, and then hesitated and did not go. He 
was quite close to Paul as they went out, but 
the latter did not see him, and Maurice did not 
touch nor speak to him. 

When Margaret was in her own room, with 
the door shut fast, she sat down and looked at 
the pictured God, in whose face the divine 
sweetness of sorrow showed. Her heart was 
full of all that had come to her, and yet, as she 
looked about the little room, with its bare, 
plain belongings, looked down at the severity 
of her own frock, there flashed before her the 
habiliments, the pertainings, of the woman who 
was his mother. A woman whose right to him 
she dared dispute. What was she, to come be- 
tween those two? How had she dared.^ And yet 
Paul had said to her: 

“Once I thought there could be no woman like 
my mother, none who could come near, nor 
touch my love for her. Now, I know there is a 
stronger, deeper,truer love, which holds me from 
everything except itself.” 


A siren’s son 


155 


And again he had said: “Love is always right. 
It is ourselves who are wrong — not love.” The 
words gave her strength, yet she was very tired, 
and when she went to bed she could not sleep. 
She was tempted to get a vial of chloral she had 
— she had used it for a sick woman, and the vial 
was not entirely empty; but she did not yield to 
the impulse. Instead she lay awake, looking out 
through a broken shutter, for through it she 
could see the stars, and they looked very near. 

Before the dawn had quite come, she was 
asleep. 


CHAPTER XV. 


It was a little later that there came a day such 
as one sometimes- sees in F'ebruary; bright with 
an air warm with sunshine, and full of the 
promise of spring. The sky was a solid blue, 
and there was not any wind. In the park the 
sparrows chirped and twittered, and although it 
was early there were plenty of babies, muffled up 
in little white hoods, being trundled up and down 
the walks. Margaret Ferrol was at her window 
looking out. It was not often that she stood so 
idly watching the shadows the sunlight made. 
Her hands were pressed against the glass, and 
her face rested against them. A ring she wore, 
with two diamonds in it, made a little mark cn 
her cheek. 

She did not have anything special to do, and 
she felt a certain irresolution, for the day was so 
beautiful it made one out of touch with every- 
day duties. She had been standing there fully 
five minutes when she was almost sure she saw 
Paul turn the corner of the street, and in a mo- 
15C 


A siren’s son 


157 


ment she saw that it was he, and that he was 
coming towards her with long strides. She felt 
a sudden fear lest his mother was worse, and 
ran down to open the door herself for him. He 
ran up the steps eagerly. Margaret, standing 
there in the full sunlight, was like a part of the 
fresh clear morning. He had not known many 
women to whom sunlight was becoming. 

“Your mother — she is not worse.?’* 

He drew her gently inside, and let his lips rest 
on hers. She trembled a little, as she always 
did when Paul kissed her. Her eyes did not 
meet his, and a little pink flush came into her 
face. 

“She is better. She is so much encouraged by 
what the doctor says, now. No, sweet, you 
cannot guess what brings me here so early.” 

They had gone into the little sitting-room, and 
Paul sat down on the horse-hair sofa and drew 
Margaret to him. He had both her hands within 
his own, and she could not well get away. 

“I want you to promise me something.” 

“What is it.? I never promise rashly.” 

“That you will do exactly what I tell you.” 

“When must I make such a sweeping state- 
ment.? It is much too committing.” 

“Now, right now. Say, ‘Paul, I will do ex- 
actly what you tell me.”’ 


158 


A siren’s son 


She tried to draw her hands away, but they 
were held fast. 

“Oh, you are going to be a tyrant.?” 

“Yes, but you have not said it yet. It is not 
very difficult. Begin, ‘Paul — 

“I have forgotten how.” 

He let go of her hands suddenly, and putting 
his arms about her, drew her down to him. 

“I am no tyrant, sweetheart; but I want you, 
I want you for my very own, to-day.” 

She looked at him gravely. “Paul, I will do 
exactly what you tell me,”she said, slowly. 

His lips met the last words on hers. Then 
he put her from him gently. 

“Go up-stairs' and put on your little gray 
frock, the one I like, and have a wrap, not too 
heavy, but warm, and your hat — one the wind 
will not blow. And be quick, dearest. As quick 
as you can.” 

Margaret was not long. She came to him 
drawing on her gloves. She wore a close fitting 
jacket, with a border of gray fur against her 
throat. 

“I am ready,” she said. 

They went out together and walked a little 
way. Then Paul stopped a car and put Mar- 
garet on. The clock was just striking nine. Paul 


A siren’s son 


159 


counted the strokes. Presently he turned to 
Margaret. 

“You do not ask me where we are going.’* 

“I thought my faith was to be implicit.” 

“I will tell you, after a while.” 

They changed cars, and after a little Margaret 
found that they were at the depot, and that 
Paul had tickets. She drew back, looking at 
him, startled. 

“Paul!” 

He drew her hand through his arm. “Trust 
me a little further, sweetheart.” 

She did not say anything more, but giving 
herself up to the intoxicating sense of his pro- 
tection, let him make her comfortable on the 
train. It was only a few minutes’ ride, and 
then they took the boat. Margaret made no 
more demur when she suspected the truth, 
that they were going to Light House Island. 
She did not even stop to reason out the pro- 
priety of such a thing, nor if it came within 
the code of conventionality. She felt the 
strong salt breeze on her face, and the water in 
its murmuring sounded with the voice of a friend 
of long ago. 

Paul, seated opposite, could not keep his 
eyes from her face. He watched the little 


i6o 


A siren’s son 


ruffle the wind made of her hair, lifting it from 
the clear white of her forehead. He did .not say 
much to her, but they did not feel any need to 
talk. The gray walls of the convent showed in 
sight. Margaret sat thinking of how it would 
have been if she had not let go of her first inten- 
tion and if she had never met Paul again, but 
had gone on living among and of those sweet, 
gentle Sisters in their peaceful life. Now her 
life, and the possibilities of it, seemed so vast. 
And then the greatness of the responsibility, 
and yet the happiness of it! 

They walked slowly up the beach where Paul 
and Maurice had walked, and where as a child 
Margaret had played at building castles and find- 
ing treasures. And she thought of how she had 
loved it all, and that it had been her home and 
her life. Paul stopped suddenly, and took both 
her hands. 

“Do you know why I wanted to come, to bring 
you here.^ I felt such a desire to be here with 
you. This is where I first saw you. We will 
go to the very spot, and I will try and remember 
just how you looked. You had on a little blue 
frock. I wish I had a bit of it now.” 

“Paul, I did not know you were so senti- 
mental.” 


A SIREN^S SON 


i6i 


“I am just beginning to know myself,” he said. 

They were very happy. They put away every- 
thing but the present. Margaret, for once, 
would not let herself have any misgivings. She 
resolutely thrust them back. They went on to 
the churchyard. The ground was thick strewn 
with dead leaves, and the rustle of their feet 
through them was the only sound to break the 
stillness. The blackened and tumbled tombs 
rose from the neglected graves all about them. 
It seemed odd to see no flowers. Margaret had 
put her hand in Paul’s and they walked silently. 
He took the way to the very spot, for he remem- 
bered it, where the maple tree branches spread 
low down, and through whose leaves he had 
caught a glimpse of a slate blue frock. 

They paused, and he turned to look at her. 

“Do you remember.^ I kissed you,” he said. 

“And I — I was half frightened, and yet — Paul, 
do you think from the beginning it was meant 
that we should belong to each other.?” 

“I am sure of it,” he answered confidently, 
putting his arm about her; “my good angel de- 
creed it.” 

“I used to love to come here,” said the girl, 
slowly; “it was so quiet. Some people do not 
like graveyards; but there is something about the 


i62 


A siren’s son 


restfulness of it that I like. And we know the 
dead are not really here.” 

“Margaret,” said the man, suddenly, “how is 
it you believe so? Other people do not. Do you 
know, I cannot help wondering at it, and how 
it can be you find enough in life to make your 
faith good. Until I met you I did not believe 
there was any good in life.” 

She looked at him gravely. “It is all good,” 
she said, simply, “only we do not always see it 
so. I can not help believing as I do, but I am 
often troubled; and since I have known you, 
Paul, I have felt maybe I did not love God 
enough. I have given so much to you.” 

There was not any one near them, or in sight, 
and Paul could not help kissing her. 

Further on they could catch a glimpse of the 
sea, at least a gray patch of it, and far out there 
was a boat. There were fishermen’s children on 
the beach, who ran and clung to Margaret. And 
there were rough men, who lifted their caps and 
held them off until she had passed. Paul waited 
for her while she went to the convent, for she 
wanted to see the Sisters. She had loved them 
all, and she wanted particularly to see Sister 
Cecile, to tell her of Paul. It seemed very nat- 
ural to be back. There was not any change. 


A SIREN^S SON 


163 


Outside the world went on so fast one could 
not keep up; but here it seemed at a standstill. 
Only time showed Sister Cecile thinner and 
paler, and Margaret knew she coughed more 
than she had done of old. 

The girl sat down on a little stool which had 
been hers as a child, and put her head against 
the elder woman’s knee. It was a comfort to 
tell some one about Paul, and she did not have 
a mother. Sister Cecile stroked her hair very 
gently while she listened. 

“I always wanted you with us, Margaret, I 
always prayed for it. Now it is not to be, and I 
do not say you are wrong. Love comes from 
God. We are not all alike, but it is hard for 
me to think of it. When you went away I felt 
it would be so, and I always wanted you to — to 
take my place.” 

“lam not fit for that,” cried the girl; “I am 
not worthy of it. When I went away I did not 
know — how could I.^ — what it would be. And 
then, then the love came, and — I cannot give 
it up.” 

Her voice sounded passionatel3^ The thin 
hand went on stroking her hair with gentle 
touch. 

“Child, we never know what we can do, until 


164 


A siren’s son 


God shows us. The unrevealed is always there ” 
There was a silence. The sunlight came in, 
and a flood of light rested upon them. Outside 
Paul waited, 

“Remember,” said Sister Cecile, when after a 
time Margaret rose to go, “remember child, there 
is always a refuge for you here, from any 
trouble, from anything that might come. We 
cannot know what is to come to us in the shad- 
ows of the future, but there need be no fear for 
you, Margaret. There are always arms stretched 
to you, there is always the blessed peace from 
the cares and sorrows of the world, which our 
dear Mother of Christ gives to us here — a peace 
the world cannot understand nor take away.” 

The sunken eyes glowed, the lips against Mar- 
garet’s burned hotly. 

There were tears in the girl’s eyes when she 
joined Paul. He was standing looking out at 
the sea. It was so still, so very calm and still. 
There was scarcely the murmur of the waves. — 

“But what of the wrecks, the wrecks, where the ships and 
their captains lie?” 

It was dark when they reached home. “It 
is the beginning of many such days,” said Paul, 
as they parted. Margaret did not reply to this, 
and he thought she looked a little tired and he 


A siren’s son 


165 

wished she were not so pale; only she would 
not be so like a snowdrop if it were otherwise. 
He met Natalie at his gate, and walked home 
with her. He liked her better now, and she did 
him. She had a feeling of sympathy with him, 
too. 

“I wish you were going with my mother, Na- 
talie,” he said; “I do not know what she will 
do without you.” 

“She will have you.” 

He did not answer, and Natalie looked at him 
sharply. She thought she understood, but did 
not say anything further,but told him something 
of her own plans. But it was not so easy to 
talk to Paul, as it had been to Maurice Dulaney. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


It was wonderful how much Katherine im- 
proved, living upon her new hope. She laid 
aside the wrappers and wore the most fanciful 
of little trained dresses. She talked with Na- 
talie about her plans continually, and she built all 
sorts of air castles, peopling them with quite a 
recklessness of imagination. Once Mrs. Fortes- 
cue said: 

“What about Paul.?” 

The other flushed. “I am disappointed, I 
admit it to you, Natalie, and more bitterly than 
I can say. I do not like to think of it, but once 
he is away, I am sure that I can manage every- 
thing.” And she added, with a little uplifting of 
her white chin, “A woman can do anything, with 
a man.” 

“Yes,” said Natalie, with an air of wisdom, 
“always provided he is not in love with some 
other woman.” 

“Fie!” said Katherine. “Have I not ex- 
pounded and well impressed upon Paul my doc- 
166 


A siren’s son 


167 


trine of the grande passion? A light love will 
yield before the greater power of the intellect 
and understanding — at least it should be greater. 
He knows that, and will act accordingly. I have 
known Paul’s fancies before.” 

But despite the confidence of her words there 
were little puckering frowns crossing the white 
forehead, and she did net look at Natalie. She 
felt out of touch with her, and was conscious of 
a certain irritability and dissatisfaction with life 
in general. 

“Do you think Paul will be willing to go.?” 
asked Natalie, after a pause. 

“I do not question it. He has been always 
willing to do as I wished. From the beginning 
I have held him in such invisible bonds that he 
did not suspect them— but they were fast, all 
the same. That has been my secret of success. 
But — ” she broke off with a little laugh, “I wish 
you were going with us, Natalie.” 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. P'ortescue. Then 
she rose and came nearer to Katherine, seating 
herself on the edge of the couch. The firelight 
burned on her face, and splashed it with red. “I 
am thinking of leaving New York, myself,” she 
said slowly. 

“When will you go.?” Katherine spoke ab- 


i68 


A siren’s son 


sently. She was slipping her now over-loose 
rings up and down her fingers. In truth she 
was not thinking of Natalie. 

“I have not fully decided about it. Generally, 
I am not slow to decide a thing — but — I had a 
letter from my — husband.” 

“Well?” 

“He seems to want me,” went on Mrs. For- 
tescue, in her even, slow tone. “He seems to 
think it rather lonely, rather desolate. He did 
not ask me to come. — I wish he had.” 

Her voice sounded with a restrained passion. 
Her eyes, staring into the fire, were very bright. 

Katherine was roused now. She put her slim 
hand on the other’s shoulder. 

“You are not dreaming of going out there, 
surely?” 

The hard ring to her words gave Natalie any 
strength she might have lacked. The two women 
looked at each other. 

“Yes, I am,” said Mrs. Fortescue. Katherine’s 
hand dropped heavily. She laughed— it was the 
mere suggestion of mirth. ' 

“I do not know what has come to the world. 
I feel as though I was on a merry-go-round. To 
think you should dream of burying yourself in 
the wilderness. Natalie, you have a bad attack 


A siren’s son • 169 

of indigestion. Let me give you a little powder 
I have found invaluable at such times.” 

“If he had said to me, ‘Come,’ I would be so 
much more satisfied,” Mrs. Fortescue continued, 
as though the other had not spoken. “But as 
it is, I am not sure what he wants, now. But 
for myself— oh, Katherine,” she raised her eyes 
in almost pathetic earnestness,“aren’t you some- 
times tired of being a nonentity, a mere sham, 
as it were, in all the vastness of what is, and 
what shall be.’ Are you satisfied with it.’” 

“I do not hold myself in such low repute as 
that, my dear. We are whole units, you and 
I, not nonentities. And as for being satisfied, 
do not look for it. When one sleeps, one is in 
a measure satisfied; only, one may dream. Long 
ago I found ambition the refuge from the world’s 
discontent. It is not satisfying, for nothing is, 
because in reality we can attain nothing. But 
with ambition, there is always something to look 
forvvard to. And we may look forward to it be- 
cause it depends upon ourselves, upon our own 
strength. Natalie, my dear, I have not had a 
particularly easy life, as the word goes. Not a 
good, jog-trot sort of a gait, and there is much 
I would like to rub with a wet finger. I do not 
say I would not have it, because it is only with 


A siren’s son 


170 

our experiences that we become what we are. 
But I advise you, Natalie, who are young, and 
fairly well to look at, do not become morbid. 
And above all, do not let any cranky notions 
take hold of you. Do you know, I envy you 
sometimes.? You have ten years ahead of you 
which I have not.” 

“1 do not want them,” said Natalie. She 
leaned back, with her arm thrown behind her 
head. “I am not young. I never have been.” 

“New York is dull just now,” went on Mrs. 
Kingston, meditatively. “Lent always makes 
the atmosphere doleful. Come with us, with 
Paul and me. The trip would do you good, and 1 
will promise you something better than powders 
for your blue devils.” 

Natalie shook her head. “You are a siren, 
Katherine,but for once I will not listen to you.” 
She rose as she spoke. “Remember, I am not 
fully decided yet. Meantime — I will read my 
letter again.” 

She went out, closing the door softly. The 
light was getting shadowy and indistinct, and 
she was almost sorry she had not had the car- 
riage come for her. But she was fond of walk- 
ing. The streets were not crowded, for it was too 
late for shoppers. It was very damp, with a wet 


A siren’s son 


I7I 

air that felt full of rain. She only stopped once, 
and that was to watch a party of sparrows that 
were bathing in the gutter. 

As she reached her door she saw Maurice 
Dulaney across the street, and with a sudden and 
entirely unaccountable impulse she motioned him 
to come to her. Natalie felt the color sweeping 
up into her face, but she spoke without any hes- 
itation. 

“Can I see you for a few minutes — can you 
spare them.?” 

“Certainly.” If he felt any surprise, he did 
not show it. 

She let herself in with a latch key, and he 
followed her into the sitting-room. The fire 
was very bright, and the servant had made tea. 
Natalie sat down and he drew a chair close to 
her. She began to speak quickly, with her head 
turned a little from him. 

“I have been a little perplexed and undecided. 
When I saw you I felt at once that you could 
help me. There is something about you that 
makes one feel that way — at least it does me.” 

She paused a minute, but Maurice did not 
speak. There had not been the least sugges- 
tion of flattery in her words, and he did not sus- 
picion it. 


172 


A siren’s son 


“I have been thinking of going out to Colo- 
rado, to my husband. Sometimes I feel I have 
been wrong in not going long ago. Do you think 
it is so.^” 

She was unlike herself, because she was a wom- 
an who usually never seemed to be in doubt, 
and who never lacked for a decision. He did 
not quite understand her, but he felt a certain 
indefinable sympathy with her mood. 

“Does he want you to come.? But of course 
he does. Pardon such a speech.” 

“He wanted me to go with him when he first 
went. He was very anxious. I said it was out 
of the question. So did Katherine. She says 
so now.” 

“Does she.?” 

“Yes, she wants me to go with her to Europe.” 

“She is positively going there.?” His face 
paled suddenly, and he felt as though a hand had 
taken tight hold of his heart. He looked at 
Natalie, and saw her eyes had a little mist over 
them. 

“Yes, she is going.” She spoke hurriedly. 
“But I cannot go with her. There is so much 
in Katherine that holds me, and fascinates me, 
that it is hard not to yield to such a temptation.” 
After a pause she went on. “But I have had a 


A siren’s son 


173 


letter — nearly a week ago it came. It was not 
so very different from the others, only lately 
they have made me feel that I might be wrong to 
be here, or indeed anywhere but there. He does 
not ask me to come, because he is not selfish, 
yet I can see the loneliness of the life, and — and 
— a woman can make things different.” 

“Yes,” said Maurice. The loneliness of his 
own life rushed upon him — the desolation of it. 
What were the achievements of it, in compar- 
ison with the hopes which had been, and were 
now a memory? His hopes! His successes 1 They 
were like mirages upon a plain, gray with des- 
olation. He was scarcely conscious that Na- 
talie was speaking. Her voice did not sound 
near. 

“You do not believe I am mistaken in think- 
ing of such a thing, then?” she said, almost 
wistfully. 

“I think you are right. I think you will find 
there is more in letting go of one’s self, more in 
sacrifice, than we know. Of course there will 
be some hard things, but I do not think you are 
afraid of them.” He paused, smiling. “I think 
he is a very fortunate man — this same Fortes - 
cue,” he added. 

“Thank you for being so sympathetic with 


174 


A siren’s son 


me,” said Natalie. “It is so often harder to see a 
right, than to do it. And when you have begun 
wrong, it makes it doubly hard.” 

“But wrong, after all, is only imperfect right, 
and the imperfect may ofttimes be made per- 
fect.” He had tried to lay aside his own som- 
berness of thought. His face was full of sym- 
pathy and interest. 

“With some people, it is so much easier to 
be right,” said Natalie. And then she was 
sorry for her words, and looked up at Maurice 
hastily. But he was looking at the fire very 
gravely, with no change of expression. Pres- 
ently he rose. 

“I must not stay any longer,” he said. “I 
will see you again. You will let me know be- 
fore you go.?” 

“Yes,” said Natalie. She did not ask him to 
stay longer, but when he had gone she stood 
quite still, with her hands holding back the 
window curtain, and watched him out of sight. 
She wondered if he knew how little she loved 
her husband, or if he could have divined how 
much she might have loved himself. But he 
had loved Katherine. He had always loved 
her, and because she was like no other, nor sug- 
gested any other, that one love was all that his 


A siren’s son 


175 


life had held. Natalie knew that, and she won- 
dered half vaguely to herself if God were a per- 
sonal God, and if so did he like to see his pup- 
pets all at odds and variance Perhaps it was 
like putting the pieces of a puzzle together, only 
some of them never did fit. They were not 
worth the trying. And then she put away the 
thought. She poured out a cup of tea, and re- 
membered suddenly that she had not asked 
Maurice to have any, and that he was fond of 
tea. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


Paul saw Margaret very often, and though 
Katherine did not suspect it, Natalie did. Mar- 
garet did not know, and she had given up think- 
ing about Katherine, because she believed in 
Paul, and he had tried so hard to reassure her. 
He was very happy. His face showed the new 
life, the new soul. He told Margaret much of 
his life, of all the temptations of it, of all the 
failures. He told her of the years spent in se- 
clusion, told her of how they would go back 
that she might see his home, told her how the 
gray moss hung and fringed the trees, and of 
how the wild roses clambered to the topmost 
branches. Of how the jasmine bloomed ‘in 
masses of golden color, and of how the scent of 
it came with the wind’s breath, and how the 
night airs were laden with it. He told her of 
how solemnly the pines stood out, and of how 
mournfully the winds sighed through them. And 
then he told her about his father, for Paul did 
not forget. And again, his fancies painted for 
her fair moonlit nights in Venice, when they 
170 


A siren’s son 


177 


would stand together there, and again in Rome 
— the Eternal City — and again in Florence— the 
city of Eternal Love. 

That was as they came back from hearing 
LoJiengrm. It seemed to Paul that to have 
Margaret leaning on his arm and listening to 
him, her clear eyes following every movement 
of his lips, was an infinity of happiness. 

As he passed the Hotel Brunswick one night, 
walking rapidly, for he had promised to come to 
Katherine’s rooms, a man came out and they 
met under the bright light. Maurice Dulaney 
put out his hand. 

“Why, Paul!” 

“I am very glad to see you,” said the other. 
He looked up at the elder man, and the past 
swept over and held him, as in music we feel, 
at times, what we had thought long forgotten. 

They walked along together. Maurice 
thought of the last time he had seen Paul, but 
he did not speak of it. He saw and recognized 
the difference in him, and felt a sense of wonder- 
ful relief, for he had liked Paul, and Katherine 
was his mother. He felt, too, that his former 
constraint with Paul was gone and he went on 
talking easily. His face was quite narrow, and 
he had a quicker, more nervous manner. Paul 


178 


A siren’s son 


congratulated him on the success he had made. 

“I read an article of yours, the other day, 
which made me understand your success,” he 
added. 

The other smiled. “I do not know that I have 
come any nearer solving the problem of human 
life, than in those days when you, as a preco- 
cious child, used to put such startling questions 
to me. But if there is any happiness in this thing 
of being, the way to find it is to try, be it in never 
so small a way, to help on this vast machinery 
of humanity But with me,” he added, “my 
greatest enemy is to-moriow.” 

“You are not old,” said Paul. But even as he 
looked at the careworn face he felt that with 
this man time had not stood still. 

“I am too old for what I want to do,” said 
Maurice. Then, with a sudden change of sub- 
ject, “How is your mother.?” 

“Better, much better. She is talking of going 
to the south of France.” Then he told him 
why. The other did not comment, but he 
stopped at the next corner. 

“1 must leave you here,” he said. 

“I wish you would come home with me,” said 
Paul. “It would be very natural to have you.” 

He felt that he would like to tell Maurice about 


A siren’s son 


179 


Margaret, and he was certain of his sympathy. 

“It would be very pleasant, but — I cannot 
come.” He smiled, and turned away. The 
other looked after him a moment, legretfully. 
He thought how he had broken. And then he 
began thinking of Margaret, because there was 
always an undercurrent of thought for her, even 
when he was talking to other people. 

When he entered Katherine’s room she was 
lying on the sofa with her face buried in a pillow 
and she was crying. Natalie, who was to spend 
the night with her, stood with her foot pushing 
back the logs and making little showers of sparks 
flash from them. She did not move as Paul 
entered. The clock hands pointed within a few 
minutes of twelve. 

Katherine was crying because Natalie had seen 
Paul at the opera with Margaret, and she had 
told Katherine of it, with the same coolness with 
which a surgeon probes a wound. Katherine 
did not look at Paul now, nor did she answer, 
when he sat down and tried to put his arms 
around her. Natalie went out and left them to- 
gether. Then Katherine sat up, and turned her 
sorrowful eyes upon him. 

“Do you not think I have misery enough to 
endure — is my cup not so bitter, but you must 


i8o 


A siren’s son 


add to it? Paul, promise me, promise me, this 
will be the end of it? You will not see the girl 
again?” 

But he answered doggedly, “I love Margaret. 
There is no reason why she should not be my 
wife.” 

“There is every reason. Paul, listen to me. 
It is not so hard to give up love. Think — I 
gave you life. Will you give me nothing in re- 
turn? We think there are indispensables to us; 
we find, later on, there is no one indispensable. 
There is no one we cannot do without.” 

“I cannot do without Margaret,” said Paul. 

“Pshaw! You are like a child. We men and 
women of to-day are wise in our generation. 
Our hearts do not break. Once back in Paris, 
you will call this fancy a mental aberration.” 

“I loathe Paris. I abhor the thought of its 
filth and uncleanliness, its forced life, which is 
not life.” 

He spoke hotly. It seemed to him he could 
feel the cool sweet wind through the trees again, 
could smell the strong salt air, could hear the 
lash of the waves upon the sands. 

“Oh, Paul!” cried Katherine and the bitter- 
ness in her voice sounded keenly. “Do you care 
so much more for this girl than for me — I, whose 


A siren’s son 


i8i 


love you once said would be sufficient always?” 

Then he could only put his arms about her. 
But when finally he left her, his heart was heavy 
enough. 

Katherine did not go to bed. It was after 
twelve, and beauty sleep was very necessary to 
her now, but still she sat up, pondering upon 
what she might do. For she felt more concern 
than she had ever known before, and she knew 
Paul was in earnest. She saw that, and she 
knew, too, just how earnest he could be, for he 
was like his father, only he had more hot blood. 
She had determined that this fancy, as she called 
it, should end. She thrust her will against it. 
And then she thought of Margaret, and she felt 
she knew something of her nature, and that it 
would be better and wiser to try and reach her 
than to combat against Paul himself. She drew 
her writing materials to her, and began to 
write. She wrote her letter over more than 
once, and tore it across, with a sharp sound. 
Finally it lay sealed and directed to Margaret 
Ferrol. Then Katherine put out her light. 

Paul did not go to see Margaret the next night. 
His conscience felt a little reproachful, and so he 
stayed at home with his mother and Natalie. 
Katherine made it very pleasant. She was full 


i82 


A siren’s son 


of bright little speeches, and the gayest jokes. 
She insisted on their having a bottle of cham- 
pagne. “Because,” she said, “vve will not be to- 
gether to drink it, very much longer.” 

Natalie was very quiet, because she was think- 
ing of her life as it had been, and as it was so 
soon to be, and whether she w'ould find anymore 
satisfaction in it than heretofore. And she could 
not help feeling that a chasm was widening be- 
tween Katherine and herself, and that in giving 
up her old life she was giving up a great deal 
besides. But she did not feel afraid. When 
she said good-night, Katherine put both arms 
about her neck. 

“Natalie, it will not seem natural, without 
you.” 

“But you will have Paul.?” 

“Yes, I will have Paul,” said Katherine quickly; 
and though Paul felt that he must speak and 
contradict her statement, yet something kept him 
quiet. 

Katherine was beginning to feel a feverish de- 
sire to be started. She had hurried in her prep- 
arations, and kept up with a nervous energy. 
It was the next day, as she was busy superin- 
tending the packing away of some heavy furs 
with camphor, that the answer to her note 


A siren’s son 


183 

came. It was a little white card with Miss Fer- 
rol written upon it in a clear, graceful hand 
Five minutes later, Margaret entered. She was 
very pale. She was indeed very like the snow- 
drops which clung to her dark dress. Paul had 
sent them to her, and in the presence of Paul’s 
mother they seemed to give her courage. 

Perhaps Katherine, in looking at her, realised 
for the first time what a beautiful face this 
woman had, whom her son loved. She pushed a 
chair to her, but Margaret did not sit down. 

“I had your note,” she began, in a low, steady 
voice; “I thought first I would write. Then I 
decided to come.” 

“My dear,” cried Katherine impulsively, “I 
hope you understood. You have sense enough, 

I know, to understand why and how I "wrote as 
I did.” 

“I understood everything, everything,” said 
Margaret. (Ah! how had that understanding 
come.?) “I have said the same thing to — to Paul. 
If he had told me how you felt, if I had known 
sooner, it would perhaps have saved us both 
trouble. I do not want to be a disgrace to him, 
and if it is true that I am not in a fit position, 
that I am not his equal, that is quite enough to 
make me refuse to marry him, without your writ- 
ing as you did.” 


184 


A siren’s son 


“I wrote,” said Katherine, “only as I felt. I 
did not know how you felt.” 

“I — I had thought of it all, before,” went on 
the girl, tremulously. Remembering hoiv she 
had thought made her more assured; “I thought 
and spoke of it. But he — he always put it from 
me. He would not listen.” 

Ah, she remembered how he had stopped her 
lips with kisses, how he had said: “My mother 
will love you, because she loves me, and we are 
one.” 

The room seemed reeling to her, the chairs 
waltzing with each other. Katherine’s voice 
sounded far away. “Paul is very foolish. Do 
not be angry if I speak to you as one woman to 
another. Such a marriage could only bring 
misery to you both. You are not in any way 
fitted for each other. What would your life be, 
surrounded by the pleasures and gayeties which 
he loves Do you think he will give them up 
for you.? How will he feel when his friends, 
now so devoted, refuse to recognize or receive 
his wife.? Then do you think he would love 
you, would your love be enough.? Could you 
bear to see him regret, to—” 

“Hush!” cried the other, shrinking under the 
words. “Hush — do not say any more. Perhaps 


A siren's son 185 

it would have been better if I had not come — 
only I could not write.” 

She could not write as the other had done, with 
the poison of asps under her lips and her pencil 
point between them. 

“Listen to me,” went on Katherine, merci- 
lessly: “I have seen Paul become infatuated 
before this — how many times I cannot count on 
my two hands. How long did it last.? Pouf! 
one might scatter a thistle less lightly. It is 
your pretty white face, my dear, that he loves. 
In a little while he will be tired of it — of you. 
What is there in you to retain his love.? You 
cannot give him anything — you can do nothing 
for him — you will only be a drag upon him. 
Look at us two, now. Here, stand beside me — ” 

She put out her hand and drew the girl in 
front of a pier glass. It gave back faithfully 
Katherine’s full seductive beauty, and Margaret’s 
slight frailness, and paleface. There was a mas- 
tering triumph in the one face. There was a 
gathering despair in the other. 

Katherine turned, letting her hands touch the 
other’s. “Can you blame me, Margaret.? Is it 
wrong that I am ambitious for my son.?” 

“Do not say any more,” pleaded Margaret, 
hoarsely. She drew away from Katherine and 


i86 


A siren’s son 


her figure drooped like a flower when the wind 
brushes it. She wondered if she could walk 
steadily, for everything looked misty, and there 
was an odd buzzing in her ears. 

“But you must have something before you go,” 
said Katherine. “A glass of wine — you are 
very pale.” 

To herself she thought, “It has been easier 
than I fancied. A woman can do anything.” 

Margaret refused. She went out, and down 
into the hall, and just as she paused with her 
hand on the door, with a sudden impulse she 
unfastened the snowdrops and laid them on the 
little hall table. Then she shut the door very 
quickly and went out. When Paul came in he 
might have noticed the snowdrops, but he did 
not, and after a while the servant threw them 
out. 

Meantime Margaret took her way along the 
crowded streets. The sun had gone under a 
cloud. It was growing more chilly. She was 
conscious of being glad she had on her heavy 
wrap. She was trying to think collectively, but 
her thoughts ran wild and scattered themselves 
in such a fashion she could not hold on to them. 
Only one thing she kept thinking: “Paul is so 
strong, he is so much stronger than I, he will 
not let me go. He will never let me go.” And 


A siren’s son 


187 


then she put the thought away, but it came back, 
and all the while that she was trying to form 
some plans it thrust them away from her, it stood 
out before her eyes — and said — “He will never 
let me go.” 

After all, if they loved each other, what right 
had any other — even if it was a love — to come 
between? Then her own words came back to 
her: “Love is a sacrifice — love is a sacrifice.” 

But she could not put Katherine’s words away 
from her, either. And her stung pride repeated 
them over and over again. Would he tire of her, 
when his friends sneered and questioned him, 
would he be weary of her when the novelty was 
over? Could she bear that? Was his mother 
right? She wished God would help her. But 
still she thought of Paul, of his face, his words 
to her, his love, the strength of it, the passion 
of it, and yet, what if God meant it to be so? 
How could she tell? Was He angry because 
she had given so much to a human passion? 
Was Sister Cecile right, after all? 

She was walking so rapidly it was almost a 
run. Her face felt hot, in spite of the wind 
upon it. The dust whirled a little. She scarcely 
knew where she was. Again and again the 
thought, full of pain and triumph, shut out 
everything else: “He will let nothing separate 


A siren’s son 


1 88 

you. You may write to him, if you will; you 
may go away, but he will come; he is stronger 
than you.” 

Then she knew she was praying; praying, 
as she went along with bent head and clasped 
hands within her muff. One of them was bare, 
and on the third finger there was a ring, two 
diamonds set together. 

But her prayer hardly took form or shape. 
It was hardly more than, “Oh, Christ, hear me.” 
And again, “Oh, God, make me stronger with 
Thine own strength than he.” 

She could not think any longer now. Her 
thoughts were in a riot, and yet out from them 
was born a faint growing quiet, that soon the 
worst would be over and she would have con- 
quered. She was conscious of a great weakness 
crawling over and through her frame. She felt 
no longer any mad sorrow or wretchedness, or 
doubt. Only she was tired, the way seemed so 
long before she could kneel down before the 
Christ and find the peace which He had promised. 

The sun came out suddenly, and wrapped her 
as in a garment. 

When Paul called that night Margaret, was 
not at home, and it was strange, because they 
had an engagement. And the next night was the 
same. Then he wrote her a note, but there 


A siren’s son 189 

came back no answer. And on the fourth day 
he did not come to dinner. 

It was a dull, gray, February day. A steady 
rain had been falling all night, and without any 
prospect for clearing. The damp, murky at- 
mosphere made every one feel as though they 
had catarrh. But Katherine’s trunks were 
packed, and she could start at a moment’s notice. 

She was alone in her rooms. A rare col- 
lection of ferns, and some odd tropical plants 
were about her. The apartment was furnished 
with heavy cushions, and a Persian rug covered 
the polished floor. There was a tall lamp, with 
clawed feet, but the room was in semi-darkness, 
and Katherine stood leaning against the window- 
sill until her eyes were blinded to what little 
light there was. So perhaps it was not unnat- 
ural that when she turned, hearing a sound be- 
hind her, and saw a man’s figure holding back 
the portiere, she thought it was Paul. 

“Have you forgotten me.^” said a voice. And 
it was not Paul’s voice; “but the servant told me 
to come up-stairs.” 

Then she saw it was Maurice Dulaney and 
that he was crossing the room and holding out 
his hand to her. 

It was twelve o’clock when Paul came in. 


A siren’s son 


190 

Outside the rain had lashed and beaten about 
him, and his boots were splashed. His face 
was white. There were heavy marks under his 
eyes, like charcoaling. His face looked suddenly 
grown old. He threw himself down upon a 
lounge. The lights were still burning and there 
was an empty wine glass upon the table. 

The next moment Katherine came in. She 
was like a ghost, in her long white wrapper, only 
no ghost ever wore such poppy cheeks, such 
burning eyes. She came to him and kneeling, 
twined her arms about his neck. 

“Paul, Paul, where have you been.^ All day 
I have wondered and longed for you. I have 
waited here alone, waited, listening to the rain.” 

“Where have I been ? Gould you not guess — 
not knoiv? I have been looking for her — for her 
— for Margaret. I have been trying to find my 
soul.” 

His vehemence frightened her. She hid her 
face upon her hands. 

“Oh, Paul, hush.” 

Outside the rain beat and surged. The win- 
dows rattled under the fury of the storm. 

“And I,” she said, “I have known what it is 
to give up love. I know too, Paul. There, put 
your hand upon me. See how hot I am, as 
though I had been running. I have been tempted 


A siren’s son 


I9I 

with what most women prize — with what you 
prize. I have had it in my reach to-night. But 
I — I am able to put it all aside, for we are going, 
you and I —we are going to find again what I 
have lost — to make me once more what I was. 
Ah, I can put away everything for that.” Her 
lips quivered and clung to his, and met with no 
return. 

“I can give up love,” she said. 

“And I am to go with you!” he cried; “with 
you, who have taken from me the one thing I 
craved, the one thing to save me! Look, I have 
been all day longing for a sight of her. When 
I had searched for her here in vain, I went over 
to Light House Island. Such a storm, such a 
fit accompaniment went with me — how it 
sounded outside the convent walls! How it 
must have sounded to those within!” 

“The convent !” 

“Yes, did you think I would not have wisdom 
enough to go there, to look for her there.?” 

“And did you find her.?” 

She had raised herself a little. The long 
masses of her unbound hair fell over her white, 
bared arm. 

“I found this — this — the end.” He tossed the 
penciled scrap to her. She read the few words 
almost at a glance. 


192 


A siren’s son 


“I have seen your mother. What you wished 
can never be. It ought not to have begun. It 
can never be, because I am here, now, to be al- 
ways as I once told you, ‘as Sister Cecile. ’ I 
will be better because of knowing you, for love 
makes us better when it comes from God. And 
you — though you will not see me any more, will 
find after a while it is better as it is. M. F.” 

She looked up and met his eyes. They were 
full of something so fiercely strong that she 
shrank back. Then she leaned forward again. 

“I, too, can sacrifice. But to-morrow we 
will go away together, Paul! I have loved you 
so, I, your mother. And you — say that you are 
willing to go with me, that you love — ” 

He pushed her a little aside and got up. He 
poured a glass of wine from the decanter and 
drank it. He held the glass so closely that the 
fragile stem splintered in his grasp. 

“I am quite willing,” he said, with a little half 
conscious laugh, “I am ready to go anywhere 
with you — to hell with you if you like.” 

Then he drew aside the curtain, and went out. 

She was still kneeling, with her hair falling 
all about her face, and her white draperies in 
crumpled folds about her. 


THE END 













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